Monday, March 24, 2014

Closing time

You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here.

This marks the official end of Bracketball's analysis of the 2013-14 season.  In reality, it ended at 6PM EST on Selection Sunday, but I had a group of reaction posts I wanted to write about the process.  I've gotten all of them up now.  Of course, I might think of something else I want to say, but for now, I'm done with the 2013-14 season.

Sometime in the summer I'll play around with a first preseason bracketology for next season, and I'll start talking about various scheduling quirks that pop up.  But otherwise, the blog'll go dark for awhile.

Sunday, March 23, 2014

Conference hierarchy, one more look

Remember the preseason when I posted my conference hierarchy?  Let me post my preseason rankings, and see how I did.

Tier 1:  Royalty
1) Big 10
2) ACC

The B1G ended up 2, but the ACC was 5th.  ACC had plenty of power at the top, and 9 of 15 teams were in the top 100.  The issue was that BC and VT bottomed out below 200.  Once again, the bottom hurts the rest of the conference.

Tier 2:  Power conferences
3) Pac-12
4) SEC
5) Big East
6) Big 12

Well, I missed on the Big 12.  #1 overall.  Only 10 teams large, everyone but TCU would up in the top 125, which is the recipe.  Nailed the Pac-12, and the BE finished 4th.  So that leaves the SEC, which finished 7th.  And not just 7th, but 7th by a lot.  There's a clear separation between the top 6 and the SEC.  They were a tier down from the other three conferences in this list.

Tier 3:  Purgatory, part 1
7) AAC

The AAC ended up 8th, about level with the SEC.  The bottom half was completely awful.

Tier 4:  Purgatory, part 2
8) MWC
9) A-10

The A-10 had a big season with 6 teams inside the RPI top 50.  Another 3 teams inside the top 100 was just as key, eliminating deadweight potential.  This got the A-10 to 6th overall.  The MWC, on the other hand, regressed badly to 10th.

Tier 5:  Don't call us mid-major
10) MVC
11) WCC

In a strange dynamic, the WCC beat the MWC, getting to 9th behind 4 top 70 teams.  They had better top-to-bottom depth than the MWC.  MVC had a really down year and still held 11th.  I think we can safely say that there is an 11-conference breakaway in college basketball when it comes to relevance.

I won't reprint the rest of the tiers, but things that stood out:
1) The MAC and CUSA were 12th and 13th, pretty clearly separating from the rest of the pack.  They're a tier of themselves now.
2) The next grouping of conferences:  Horizon, CAA, MAAC, Summit.  Summit was the outlier because NDSU overperformed.
3) Football money does not matter for the Sun Belt.  Finished 19th.
4) The WAC way overperformed in 21st place, because of New Mexico St.
5) I had the OVC 15th entering the year.  Finished 24th.  Oops.

So with all this in mind, here are my new tiers for future years:

Tier 1:  Big 10, ACC - not tempted enough to change this, yet
Tier 2:  Big 12, Pac-12, Big East, SEC - the order within this tier changes, but not the grouping
Tier 3:  A-10, MWC, AAC - this group is clearly below Tier 2.  AAC is about to get smacked with the realignment stick again, so they belong here
Tier 4:  WCC, MVC, CUSA - I'm going to give CUSA the bump up to this tier.  It's debatable.  I think we'll see a 12-conference breakaway now
Tier 5:  MAC, MAAC, Horizon, CAA - Conference numbers 13-16 here.  Just good enough to be ignored by the selection committee every year.
Tier 6:  Sun Belt, Summit, Ivy - Ivy is carving out a niche in the middle of the tiers here.  These are conferences #17-19.
Tier 7:  OVC, Patriot, Big West, A-Sun - Conferences #20-23.  These are the ones who can realistically hope to win a game in March every year, and who won't bottom out.  The common trait?  Top-tier teams who can remain constant threats (Murray St, Belmont, Boston, UCSB, LBSU, Mercer, FGCU).
Tier 8:  Big Sky, NEC, S'land, Big South, A-East, WAC, SoCon, MEAC - I see these guys being interchangeable going forward.
Tier SWAC:  SWAC

Ok, one more RPI note

I always think it's fascinating to see the highest RPIs left out of the tournament.  So here they are:

33 Southern Miss
38 Toledo
49 Missouri
50 Minnesota
53 SMU
54 Florida St
57 Belmont
58 Green Bay
59 Iona
61 St Mary's

Actually a pretty good mix of high-major and mid-major here.  No trend can be discerned from this.

Worst RPIs to get an at-large bid:

56 Iowa
55 North Carolina St
51 Kansas St
48 Nebraska
47 Xavier

Again, no real outlier.  This is a pretty quiet year.  Normally when I do these, there's more volatility and clearer biases.

Friday, March 21, 2014

A note on RPI

Some final thoughts on how RPI is used.

The selection committee has done a good job of ignoring individual teams' RPI in the selection process.  However, the RPI still matters when it comes to assembling lists of records vs. RPI Top 50, Top 100, and so forth.  If a metric is not good enough to be used for an individual team, but is good enough to be used to group said teams, isn't that contradictory? 

This is why I like to look at average RPI win and average RPI loss a bit more.  This helps balance out any imbalance in the numbers.  Beating a team twice with an RPI of 51 is fundamentally different than beating a team twice with an RPI of 100, but using average RPI win as a stat is the only way to get that to show up in the data, without looking at the actual list of results.

Which brings me to a fundamental issue with RPI and "bad losses" and "good wins". 

Let's take 4 teams.  Let's say Team A is undefeated, 1.000 winning percentage (30-0) and team B is a good .800 team (24-6).  Team C is a bad .300 team (9-21) and Team D is a really bad .050 team (0-20).  Records are uneven, but whatever, this is an illustrative example.

According to the way RPI is calculated, the RPI sees the difference between Teams A and B as being dead equal as the difference between C and D.  However, the difference in beating Team A against B is big.  Now, beating either Team A or B would be a signature win, but one is more signature than the other.

Now look at what happens with a win against Team C or D.  In either case, the public perception of the team doesn't change.  They beat a bad team.  However, the RPI sees a difference in beating the two teams, the same difference it would see between Teams A and B.

Let's say Team C has a 225 RPI and Team D has a 350 RPI (reasonable).  From public perception, the difference in wins is negligible, and a loss against C is just as harmful as a loss against D.  But according to the RPI's perception, the difference between C and D is large.

And therein lies the problem.  The public perception says any win over a team outside the top 150 is mostly useless in evaluation.  However, from the RPI formula's point of view, there's a big difference between a win over a RPI 175 team and a RPI 325 team.  This results in distorted RPIs that punish teams far too much for playing bad teams and doesn't reward enough for teams who play great teams

What the RPI needs is a weighted adjustment.  There shouldn't be a big difference between playing a RPI 225 and a RPI 350 team.  We should scale down the effect really bad teams have on RPIs compared to the merely below-average.  Similarly, we should be able to scale up wins against terrific teams.  Right now teams benefit more from avoiding bad teams than scheduling good teams.  We need to emphasize scheduling great opponents, while de-emphasizing the need to purge every single cupcake from the schedule.

This is something I hope someone takes a look at.  What happens if you replace every horrible team on SMU's schedule with, say, the RPI 225 team?  Take the 6 or so horrible teams, replace them with merely bad teams, give SMU easy wins in all of them...what happens to their SoS and RPI?  Do they make it in the tourney?  Perhaps.  And yet, SMU would have ended up with the exact same on-court results against either schedule.

Given the expansion of D-1 in recent years, it's worth exploring ways to minimizing penalties for playing the worst of the worst.  Non-con scheduling should be about finding the best games, not avoiding the worst games.  The emphasis point needs to change.

Thursday, March 20, 2014

A note on geography

So Wichita State got a loaded regional.  Here's why.

The committee likes to put teams into the bracket in such a way that travel is minimized for the teams and their fans.  So let's look down the seed lines and see how they did that.

Villanova, as the top 2 seed, got to be placed in the east.  Michigan was next, and obviously got placed in the midwest.

On the 3 line, Duke was the top 3 seed.  Geographically, their preferred region is the midwest, not east (least travel).

On the 4 line, Louisville was the top 4 seed.  Geographically, their preferred region is the midwest.

On the 8 line, Kentucky was the top 8 seed.  Geographically, their preferred region is the midwest.

So now we see the problem.  Wichita gets the toughest 8 seed, followed by the toughest 4, followed by the toughest 3 or the 2nd toughest 2.  That's imbalanced, period.  Wichita got a tougher draw than others.  Because of geography.  Because the committee tries so hard to keep everyone close to home.

The NCAA needs to stop this.  I get the concept behind their geographical-based methods.  But a fair bracket should be of primary importance.  Geography should be secondary to a fair and balanced bracket.  The NCAA needs to revisit their policy and introduce rules that force them to create more balanced regionals.

This problem also shows up in other ways.  The AAC has 4 teams in the tournament, but 3 would up in the same regional.  Cincy, Memphis, and UConn are all in the east regional.  Naturally, they all went there because they're eastern teams.  I'd rather see the NCAA reintroduce the rule that forces the top teams from each conference into different regionals.  It's not fair to a conference to be loaded up into a single regional.

The NCAA is almost there in terms of a pure, fair bracket.  They just need to de-emphasize geography just a little bit.

One more thing:  if you're the top team among teams in a seed line (say, Kentucky and the 8), you get geographic priority over the other 8s.  Therefore, you could make the argument a team would rather be the top team on a seed line instead of the last team on the above seed line.  You'd rather be the first 7 seed than the last 6 seed.  Because with the first 7 seed, you get geographic priority, and the last 6 gets the last available spot.  That needs to be fixed.

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

NIT/CBI/CIT projection analysis

Since I'm one of the few people stupid enough to offer projections for the other 3 tournaments, it's fair to look and see how I did.

NIT

Here's what I had:
Last 4 in:  Richmond, Indiana, Marquette, Maryland
Last 4 out:  LSU, St Mary's, Washington, Middle Tennessee
Off the board:  Indiana St, San Francisco, UTEP, Boise St, Ole Miss, Ohio, Cleveland St, UNLV

So I missed 4 teams in total - the entirety of my last 4 in.  I missed LSU, St Mary's, Indiana St, and San Francisco on the other end.

I can't complain too much about LSU - the one power conference team sitting at .500 in their conference, so I can see the logic.  I actually like, once again, the NIT leaning towards mid-majors and taking top teams from the MVC and WCC.  I didn't think they'd do it this year, especially with an Indiana team with some signature wins.  Richmond I think should've probably made it.

San Francisco and Indiana St were 2nd in their conferences, but their overall resume paled in comparison to the rest on the bubble.  I'm ok with them in the NIT, but not thrilled.

As far as seeding:
- I had Toledo as a 4, them a 6 and just in.  Toledo was never getting left out with their RPI but I found it interesting they way underseeded them.
- Georgetown and Green Bay - I had both as 2 seeds, the NCAA had them last 4 out...and 4 seeds, both, from the NIT.  Huh?
- On the flip side, I had Georgia as a 4 and the NIT had them as a 2.  Guess conference record really matters here.

Among the 28 teams I projected in, I got 10 seeds right and another 10 within 1 line.  That actually sucks, and proves the NIT selection committee is senile and/or unpredictable.


CBI:
My last projections from March 10 had these CBI teams:
Buffalo, LaSalle, Wake Forest, Vanderbilt
Houston, Texas A&M, Northern Iowa, Cleveland St
Oregon St, UNLV, New Mexico St, Tulsa
Miami, Ole Miss, Manhattan, Towson

Only 2 of those teams wound up in the CBI.  Oregon St and Texas A&M.  LOL.

Now, to be fair, since those projections, 3 of the teams (NMSU, Tulsa, Manhattan) played their way into a slightly more important tournament.  Further, Cleveland St and Towson went to the CIT instead.

That leaves 9 teams (Buffalo, LaSalle, Wake, Vandy, Houston, UNI, UNLV, Miami, Ole Miss).  We already know a few teams publicly turned down bids, and I'm willing to bet all 9 actually turned down bids.


CIT:
My last projections from March 10...I won't reprint them all for the sake of brevity.  3 of the 32 teams I had (Louisiana-Lafayette, American, Milwaukee) would up in the better tournament.  6 of the 32 teams (Wyoming, Illinois St, South Dakota St, Fresno St, UTEP, Hampton) I projected to the CIT would up in the CBI.  Amusing sidebar:  I projected Fresno at UTEP in the CIT and it happened...in the CBI instead.  So these 9 teams really don't count as misses.

Of the 23 remaining teams, I got 13 right in my projections.  I consider it highly likely many of those 10 turned down bids.

So the general lesson is that of the 45 teams I projected to be worthy of the CBI/CIT, almost all the power conference teams turned it down, and about half of the mid-majors either turned down bids or I mis-projected them.

My takeaway:  CBI projections are pointless, or if you do them, just take out most of the power conference teams.  CIT projections are actually do-able, with perhaps a bit more research on which schools typically turn down bids.

Monday, March 17, 2014

Final analysis

Let's get analysis from a man who basically had average performances this year.  I'm pretty much on the mean for all brackets, in just about every possible way to judge.  It's too bad I can't retroactively put the last 6 years on this blog; I think this was my worst year in awhile.  Where did it go all wrong?

1) The 1 line.  I'm surprised I'm the only one that leaned out and took Wisconsin.  Clearly, the committee was full of crap when it said conference record doesn't matter.  They say conference affiliation is inconsequential, yet they used arbitrary conference championships to justify Virginia, along with Michigan and Villanova as contenders, on the 1 line.

Michigan vs. Wisconsin - UM won the Big 10 by 3 games, on an imbalanced schedule.  They split their 2 games this season.  Wisconsin had the better SoS (#2 overall, #10 non-con; Michigan had a #83 non-con), better average win (95 vs. 109), and more top 100 wins.  Michigan had more top 50 wins in its favor.  Michigan had the worst loss (N-Charlotte).  It's very close, but Wisconsin has the merit.

Virginia vs. Wisconsin - Wisky has the SoS checkmark, although UVA (#28 overall, #35 non-con is close).  130 average win is substantially worse, though.  Only 4-4 against the top 50, 6 wins over tourney teams against Wisky's 8.  Virginia can toe the line with Wisky in some categories, but the only thing Virginia has that Wisconsin doesn't is dual ACC titles against a badly imbalanced ACC schedule and a Pitt-aided conference tourney run.  Wisky should get the checkmark here.  AND WISCONSIN BEAT VIRGINIA ON THE ROAD.

Villanova vs. Wisconsin - Nova does get the checkmark with bad loss avoidance, but again, an average win of 137 against Wisky's 95 looks pale.  SoS 34, non-con SoS 56 are solid but don't compare to Wisky.  Villanova has one win (N-Kansas) over a single digit seed.  Remember, the N-Iowa win evaporated.  I can't make a case here.

Iowa St vs. Wisconsin - ISU's SoS is 11, average win of 107, 9 top 50 wins, 15 top 100 wins.  All compare well.  This might be the one team with the best case to overtake Wisky.

So there.  That's my logic.  If you don't like it, deal with it.

2) The selection committee hates the American.  I was too high on Louisville by 1 line, Cincy by 1 line, UConn by 2 lines.  I thought they would apply the eye test a bit harder in each case.  Mostly, I'm ok with seeding them down, but I give credit to the committee for following through.

3) The A-10 got overvalued a bit.  They got carried away with the computers, in the same vein that the Mountain West did last year.  St Louis was clearly a case where they let the computer numbers guide them.  If you look, they dominated head-to-head results against the top 6 of the A-10.  That boosted them significantly.  They probably should have looked harder at the decent but not great non-con SoS and results.  They let the A-10 cannibalize itself, and rewarded them for it.  This is kind of true across the board.  However, if you're going to over-reward everyone, at least UMass and their 7 top 50 wins and 13 top 100 wins got a 6 seed.  That's fair.  And 13 road wins too!

4) North Carolina St is an awful selection.  The signature win is Syracuse on a neutral, and there's @Pitt and @Tennessee.  Ok, fair.  Road/neutral wins.  They're also 3-9 against the top 50, 6-11 against the top 100, and had a marginal non-con SoS (109).  Come on.  Other bubble teams had equal signature wins than N-Syracuse (Green Bay had Virginia, Cal had Arizona, SMU had Cincy, Nebraska had Wisky, etc etc), and were stronger in other aspects.

5) Green Bay probably deserved another look from me, although I wouldn't have put them in over BYU.  Did you realize they had the #52 non-con, putting Wisky, Virginia, and the Great Alaska Shootout on there?  At least they efforted.

6) SMU, schedule better.

7) The committee has a geography fetish.  I'll save that for the next post.

8) The committee just seems to randomly put together the bottom fourth of the bracket.  SFA on the 12 line?  Western Michigan on the 14 line?  WMU has 8 top 100 wins, you know.  SFA played 1 top 100 team.  At some point you have to punish EVERY team that plays a non-con in the 300s.  Next year, I have to remind myself to seed those lines based on RPI, because trying to analyze them actually took me further from the committee's results and killed my score.

NCAA's official S-Curve

1-4) Florida, Arizona, Wichita St, Virginia
5-8) Villanova, Michigan, Kansas, Wisconsin
9-12) Duke, Syracuse, Creighton, Iowa St
13-16) Louisville, Michigan St, UCLA, San Diego St
17-20) Cincinnati, St Louis, VCU, Oklahoma
21-24) North Carolina, Ohio St, UMass, Baylor
25-28) Texas, UConn, Oregon, New Mexico
29-32) Kentucky, Gonzaga, Memphis, Colorado
33-36) Kansas St, George Washington, Oklahoma St, Pittsburgh
37-40) Stanford, St Joseph's, BYU, Arizona St
41-45) Dayton, Nebraska, Providence, Tennessee, Iowa
46-50) Xavier, North Carolina St, North Dakota St, Harvard, Stephen F Austin
51-54) Manhattan, Tulsa, New Mexico St, Delaware
55-58) Western Michigan, Mercer, Louisiana-Lafayette, North Carolina Central
59-62) Eastern Kentucky, Milwaukee, Wofford, American

63-68) Coastal Carolina, Weber St, Mount St Mary's, Albany, Texas Southern, Cal Poly

So let's compare my 1-68 to the committee's.

Here's how we do this.  I'll add up how far off I was on each individual rank, and average them out.  I believe this is a better way to evaluate bracketologist performance, since we're all trying to replicate the S-Curve, not the seed lines.

I was off a total of 151 spots over 67 teams, for an average of 2.253 spots per team.  This is the equivalent of missing every single team by half a seed line.

The Bracket Matrix, assembled as a whole, was off 125 spots over 67 teams, for an average of 1.866.  On first inspection, anything under 2.00 is exceptional, IMO.

Sunday, March 16, 2014

Final performance

67/68 teams correct (that's average this year)
34 teams seeded correctly (that's not good)
60 teams within 1 seed (that should be above average this year)

I'll wait for Bracket Matrix and their official score, and I'm also going to score the S-Curve against the NCAA's S-Curve (which I think is a better indicator).

CBI/CIT fields

They're out.

CBI
Wyoming (18-14) at Texas A&M (17-15)
Morehead St (20-13) at Illinois St (16-15)

Radford (21-12) at Oregon St (16-15)
South Dakota St (19-12) at Old Dominion (16-17)

Fresno St (17-16) at UTEP (23-10)
Princeton (20-8) at Tulane (17-16)

Hampton (18-12) at Penn St (15-17)
Stony Brook (23-10) at Siena (15-17)

3 sub-.500 teams...and they're from CUSA and the MAAC!  (and the B1G)

CIT

Monday
Holy Cross (19-13) at Brown (15-13)
Tuesday
VMI (19-12) at Canisius (20-12)
Wright St (20-14) at East Carolina (17-16)
Norfolk St (19-14) at Eastern Michigan (21-14)
Chattanooga (18-14) at East Tennessee St (18-15)
Columbia (19-12) at Valparaiso (18-15)
Alabama St (19-12) at Sam Houston St (23-10)
Portland St (17-14) at San Diego (16-16)
Wednesday
Quinnipiac (20-11) at Yale (15-13)
Towson (23-10) at USC Upstate (19-14)
Cleveland St (21-11) at Ohio (23-11)
Akron (21-12) at IPFW (24-10)
Murray St (18-11) at Missouri St (20-12)
North Dakota (17-16) at Nebraska-Omaha (16-14)
Texas A&M-CC (17-15) at Northern Colorado (18-13)
Pacific (15-15) at Grand Canyon (15-14)

Worst teams in the postseason:
East Tennessee St - 10-8 in the A-Sun, sub-200 RPI
Portland St - T-5 in the Big Sky, sub-250 RPI
Brown - 5th in the Ivy, sub-200 RPI
Siena - under .500, 5th in the MAAC
Alabama St - sub-250 RPI, but they were 2nd in the SWAC
Nebraska-Omaha - ghastly 5-9 in the Summit, sub-200 RPI, bought their way in
Grand Canyon - 3rd in the WAC, sub-200 RPI
East Carolina - 5-11 in CUSA, sub-200 RPI
there's also a few other terrible teams who had solid in-conference finishes (TAMU-CC, Chattanooga, Yale,
VMI, North Dakota, USC-Upstate), so I won't bag on them too badly.

Best Available Left Out Of The Postseason (it's highly likely, or already confirmed, that these teams passed these tournaments up):

Richmond (19-14) RPI 76
Maryland (17-15) RPI 78
Marquette (17-15) RPI 91
Indiana (17-15) RPI 100
Middle Tennessee (24-9) RPI 64
UNLV (20-13) RPI 108
Boise St (21-13) RPI 81
Washington (17-15) RPI 104
Ole Miss (19-14) RPI 93
William & Mary (20-12) RPI 120
Drexel (16-14) RPI 132
Buffalo (19-10) RPI 106
Western Kentucky (20-12) RPI 125
UC Santa Barbara (21-9) RPI 107

other power conference teams likely passing up bids:  Houston, St Bonaventure, LaSalle, Miami, Wake Forest, Georgia Tech, Notre Dame, Seton Hall, UAB, Charlotte, Northern Iowa, Nevada, Utah St, Colorado St, Vanderbilt

Notable mid-major teams not playing.   I'm guessing the postseason bubble fell somewhere around these teams.  And if your team still hasn't been listed, then you were really not a good team.
Hartford (4th A-East), North Florida and Lipscomb (T-4th A-Sun), Montana and Northern Arizona (T-2nd in the Big Sky), Winthrop, Gardner-Webb, and UNC Asheville (T-4th Big South), Long Beach St and Hawaii (3rd-4th Big West), Wagner and Bryant (2nd and 3rd NEC), Tennessee Tech (5th OVC), Bucknell (4th Patriot), Elon and Western Carolina (3rd and 5th SoCon), Northwestern St and Oral Roberts (4th and 5th Southland), Arkansas St (4th Sun Belt)

Official CBI/CIT bid accept tracker

This is the last update of this post before brackets are released later tonight.

I will be assembling these from various sources, and crediting them as warranted.  Some of them will be posted here as well: http://pjstarforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=95586.  Shoutout to squirrel, who I have a feeling is going to scoop me on many of these announcements.

If you've got something I've missed, drop it in the comments below (like one good Samaritan already has) and I'll update.

This will update as more information comes in.

CIT accepted bids:

Columbia (link) at Valparaiso (link)
Murray St (link) at Missouri St (link)
Holy Cross (link) at Brown (link)
Chattanooga (link) at East Tennessee St (link)
Pacific (link) at Grand Canyon (link)
Quinnipiac (link) at Yale (link)
Wright St (link) at East Carolina (link)

Canisius:  link  *home game
IPFW:  link  *home game
Nebraska-Omaha:  link *home game
San Diego:  link  *home game
USC Upstate:  link  *home game
VMI:  link

12 home teams accounted for, 4 hosting spots left
7 road teams accounted for, 9 road spots left
1 team (VMI) with unknown road/home status

CBI accepted bids:
none yet

no postseason (no NIT chances, turned down CBI/CIT bids):
Georgia Tech:  link
Miami:  link
Northern Iowa:  link
Notre Dame:  link

Actual NCAA/NIT brackets and quick reaction

Here's the actual NCAA and NIT brackets (not predictions, although I wish).  You've seen the NCAA ones by now, maybe not the NIT one. 

My quick thoughts are below as well...I'm planning a post to recap how I did, but I'll wait for Bracket Matrix to release their numbers first, I think.

NIT

1) Minnesota vs. 8) High Point
4) St Mary's vs. 5) Utah
3) Southern Miss vs. 6) Toledo
2) Missouri vs. 7) Davidson
Home game to the WCC team instead of the Pac-12 team.  Wow...Toledo barely in the field, according to seed.  Top 40 RPI means nothing anymore, heh

1) Florida St vs. 8) FGCU
4) Georgetown vs. 5) West Virginia
3) Louisiana Tech vs. 6) Iona
2) Georgia vs. 7) Vermont
They have Georgia too high, overvalued their conference finish...G'town goes from last 4 out of the NCAAs to a 4 seed here.  Flip those two seeds please

1) St John's vs. 8) Robert Morris
4) Green Bay vs. 5) Belmont
3) Clemson vs. 6) Georgia St
2) Illinois vs. 7) Boston
Green Bay - also last 4 out of the NCAAs, 4 seed here.  It's like they're trying to be contrarian for the hell of it

1) SMU vs. 8) UC Irvine
4) San Francisco vs. 5) LSU
3) Arkansas vs. 6) Indiana St
2) California vs. 7) Utah Valley
I had 3 of these teams (ISU, SF, LSU) missing the NIT...not sure what the committee is playing at here.  This leads to a cakewalk regional for SMU

NCAA

SOUTH
@Orlando
1) Florida vs. 16) Albany/Mount St Mary's
8) Colorado vs. 9) Pittsburgh
Fair.
@San Diego
4) UCLA vs. 13) Tulsa
5) VCU vs. 12) Stephen F Austin
UCLA sneaks into the top 16 and gets the geographic benefit of San Diego...Stephen F Austin should not be a 12 seed.  Who have they beaten?  A classic case of committee not fact-checking the automatic qualifiers.  VCU might be a touch overseeded but it's not egrogrious
@Buffalo
3) Syracuse vs. 14) Western Michigan
6) Ohio St vs. 11) Dayton
Syracuse as a 2 or 3?  Based on pure resume, you can't deny them a 2 seed.  Obviously recent form matters, more than I thought...Western Michigan had 8 top 100 wins.  That's not a 14 seed.  Flip SFA and WMU, please
@St Louis
2) Kansas vs. 15) Eastern Kentucky
7) New Mexico vs. 10) Stanford
No issue with Kansas as a 2 seed, thought the injury might knock them down to a 3

EAST
@Raleigh
1) Virginia vs. 16) Coastal Carolina
8) Memphis vs. 9) George Washington
Based on pure resume, Virginia should NOT be a 1 seed, period.  Look at the resume of them vs. Iowa St and tell me with a straight face Virginia is better.  The only rationale is to argue about the ACC championship double...but the committee says that doesn't matter.  What?
@Spokane
4) Michigan St vs. 13) Delaware
5) Cincinatti vs. 12) Harvard
Cincy's seed is just the first example of the committee hating the AAC...they put 3 AAC teams in this regional.  How about some balance, please?
@San Antonio
3) Iowa St vs. 14) North Carolina Central
6) North Carolina vs. 11) Providence
ISU, UNC, and Provi all feel slightly underseeded
@Buffalo
2) Villanova vs. 15) Milwaukee
7) UConn vs. 10) St Joseph's
No qualms here.

WEST
@San Diego
1) Arizona vs. 16) Weber St
8) Gonzaga vs. 9) Oklahoma St
Fair.
@Spokane
4) San Diego St vs. 13) New Mexico St
5) Oklahoma vs. 12) North Dakota St
Hey, two straight reasonable sub-regionals!
@San Antonio
3) Creighton vs. 14) Louisiana-Lafayette
6) Baylor vs. 11) Nebraska
Good for you, NCAA.  Keeping things tight geographically.  It's too bad you throw away every other consideration to try and achieve it
@Milwaukee
2) Wisconsin vs. 15) American
7) Oregon vs. 10) BYU
The committee was drunk when they seeded BYU.  Meanwhile, Wisky had a sterling profile and wasn't considered for the 1 line (their words, not mine), while several others were?  Looks like conference titles do matter, even though they say it doesn't.  Good grief, make up your mind, committee

MIDWEST
@St Louis
1) Wichita St vs. 16) Cal Poly/Texas Southern
8) Kentucky vs. 9) Kansas St
The committee just gave the middle finger to Wichita.  I'll break this out in a separate post...
@Orlando
4) Louisville vs. 13) Manhattan
5) St Louis vs. 12) North Carolina St/Xavier
NC State is a ridiculous selection.  6-11 vs. top 100.  3 wins over tourney teams.  Not a top 100 non-con SoS.  As for Louisville, at some point, the eye test has to count...don't selectively apply it
@Raleigh
3) Duke vs. 14) Mercer
6) UMass vs. 11) Iowa/Tennessee
Good to see the committee didn't overseed Duke, and gave credit to UMass for 13 top 100 wins
@Milwaukee
2) Michigan vs. 15) Wofford
7) Texas vs. 10) Arizona St
Fair.

NIT projections FINAL

1) California (19-13) vs. 8) UC Irvine (23-11)
4) Toledo (27-6) vs. 5) Indiana (17-15)
3) St John's (20-12) vs. 6) Boston (24-10)
2) Missouri (22-11) vs. 7) Davidson (20-12)

1) Minnesota (20-13) vs. 8) Utah Valley (19-11)
4) Utah (21-11) vs. 5) Louisiana Tech (27-7)
3) Southern Miss (27-6) vs 6) Belmont (24-9)
2) Arkansas (21-11) vs. 7) Georgia St (25-8)

1) Florida St (19-13) vs. 8) FGCU (22-12)
4) Georgia (19-13) vs. 5) Richmond (19-14)
3) West Virginia (17-15) vs. 6) Maryland (17-15)
2) Georgetown (17-14) vs. 7) Robert Morris (21-13)

1) SMU (23-9) vs. 8) High Point (16-14)
4) Clemson (20-12) vs. 5) Iona (22-10)
3) Illinois (19-14) vs. 6) Marquette (17-15)
2) Green Bay (24-6) vs. 7) Vermont (22-10)

Last 4 in:
Richmond
Indiana
Marquette
Maryland

Last 4 out:
LSU (19-13)
St Mary's (22-11)
Washington (17-15)
Middle Tennessee (24-9)

Would surprise me if they receive a bid:
Indiana St (23-10)
San Francisco (21-11)
UTEP (23-10)
Boise St (21-13)
Ole Miss (19-14)
Ohio (23-11)
Cleveland St (21-11)
UNLV (20-13)


Honestly, take those 12 teams, throw them in the CBI, and you'd have a heck of a tournament.


By the way, no more CBI/CIT projections, as much of the CIT matchups are already out, and as acting as a source of info, don't want to put up projections that can be mistaken as actuality.

S-Curve 3/16 FINAL

The 1 line: Florida (32-2), Arizona (30-4), Wichita St (34-0), Wisconsin (26-7)
The 2 line: Michigan (25-8), Villanova (28-4), Iowa St (26-7), Virginia (28-6)
The 3 line: Kansas (25-9), Duke (26-8), Louisville (29-5), Syracuse (27-5)
The 4 line: Cincinnati (27-6), Creighton (26-7), Michigan St (26-8), UCLA (25-8)
The 5 line: UConn (26-8), San Diego St (29-4), North Carolina (23-9), Oklahoma (23-9)
The 6 line: Ohio St (25-9), New Mexico (27-6), Baylor (24-11), VCU (26-8)
The 7 line: Texas (23-10), Kentucky (24-10), Oregon (23-8), UMass (24-8)
The 8 line: St Louis (26-6), George Washington (24-8), Memphis (23-9), Gonzaga (28-6)
The 9 line: Kansas St (20-12), Pittsburgh (25-9), Oklahoma St (21-12), St Joseph's (24-9)
The 10 line: Providence (23-11), Colorado (23-11), Xavier (21-12), Stanford (21-12)
The 11 line: Arizona St (21-11), Tennessee (21-12), Dayton (23-10), SMU (23-9), Iowa (20-12)
The 12 line: BYU (23-11), Nebraska (19-12), Western Michigan (23-9), Tulsa (21-12), North Dakota St (25-6)
The 13 line: New Mexico St (26-9), Manhattan (25-7), Harvard (26-4), Delaware (25-9)
The 14 line: Eastern Kentucky (24-9), Stephen F Austin (31-2), Mercer (26-8), Milwaukee (21-13)
The 15 line: Louisiana-Lafayette (23-11), North Carolina Central (28-5), American (20-12), Weber St (19-11)
The 16 line: Wofford (20-12), Coastal Carolina (21-12), Albany (18-14), Mount St Mary's (16-16), Texas Southern (19-14), Cal Poly (13-19)

Tail end of the lockbox:
Xavier, Stanford, Arizona St, Tennessee, Dayton, SMU, Iowa

Last 2 in:
BYU
Nebraska

Last 3 out:
Minnesota (20-13)
Florida St (19-13)
California (19-13)

Off the board:  Arkansas, Missouri, Green Bay, Southern Miss

3/16 bracket FINAL

SOUTH
@Orlando
1) Florida (32-2) vs. 16) Albany (18-14)/Mount St Mary's (16-16)
8) St Louis (26-6) vs. 9) Oklahoma St (21-12)
@San Diego
4) UCLA (25-8) vs. 13) New Mexico St (26-9)
5) UConn (26-8) vs. 12) Tulsa (21-12)
@San Antonio
3) Kansas (25-9) vs. 14) Stephen F Austin (31-2)
6) New Mexico (27-6) vs. 11) SMU (23-9)/Iowa (20-12)
@Raleigh
2) Virginia (28-6) vs. 15) North Carolina Central (28-5)
7) Texas (23-10) vs. 10) Providence (23-11)

EAST
@Milwaukee
1) Wisconsin (26-7) vs. 16) Wofford (20-12)
8) George Washington (24-8) vs. 9) Pittsburgh (25-9)
@San Diego
4) Cincinnati (27-6) vs. 13) Manhattan (25-7)
5) North Carolina (23-9) vs. 12) Western Michigan (23-9)
@Raleigh
3) Duke (26-8) vs. 14) Eastern Kentucky (24-9)
6) Ohio St (25-9) vs. 11) Tennessee (21-12)
@Buffalo
2) Villanova (28-4) vs. 15) American (20-12)
7) UMass (24-8) vs. 10) Stanford (21-12)

MIDWEST
@St Louis
1) Wichita St (34-0) vs. 16) Texas Southern (19-14)/Cal Poly (13-19)
8) Memphis (23-9) vs. 9) St Joseph's (24-9)
@Spokane
4) Creighton (26-7) vs. 13) Harvard (26-4)
5) Oklahoma (23-9) vs. 12) North Dakota St (25-6)
@Orlando
3) Louisville (29-5) vs. 14) Mercer (26-8)
6) Baylor (24-11) vs. 11) Arizona St (21-11)
@Milwaukee
2) Michigan (25-8) vs. 15) Louisiana-Lafayette (23-11)
7) Kentucky (24-10) vs. 10) Colorado (23-11)

WEST
@San Diego
1) Arizona (30-4) vs. 16) Coastal Carolina (21-12)
8) Gonzaga (28-6) vs. 9) Kansas St (20-12)
@Spokane
4) Michigan St (26-8) vs. 13) Delaware (25-9)
5) San Diego St (29-4) vs. 12) Dayton (23-10)
@Buffalo
3) Syracuse (27-5) vs. 14) Milwaukee (21-13)
6) VCU (26-8) vs. 11) BYU (23-11)/Nebraska (19-12)
@St Louis
2) Iowa St (26-7) vs. 15) Weber St (19-11)
7) Oregon (23-8) vs. 10) Xavier (21-12)

NIT projections (almost) FINAL

The 1 line:  Minnesota (20-13), Florida St (19-13), California (19-13), Arkansas (21-11)
The 2 line:  Missouri (22-11), Georgetown (17-14), North Carolina St (21-13), Green Bay (24-6)
The 3 line:  Southern Miss (27-6), Illinois (19-14), West Virginia (17-15), St John's (20-12)
The 4 line:  Utah (21-11), Toledo (27-6), Clemson (20-12), Georgia (19-13)
The 5 line:  Louisiana Tech (27-7), Richmond (19-14), Indiana (17-15), Marquette (17-15)
The 6 line:  Maryland (17-15), Belmont (24-9), Iona (22-10), Boston (24-10)
The 7 line:  Georgia St (25-8), UC Irvine (23-11), Vermont (22-10), Davidson (20-12)
The 8 line:  Robert Morris (21-13), Utah Valley (19-11), FGCU (22-12), High Point (16-14)

NIT bubble (everyone Georgia and above are considered locks):

Last 4 in:
Richmond
Indiana
Marquette
Maryland

Last 4 out:
LSU (19-13)
St Mary's (22-11)
Washington (17-15)
Middle Tennessee (24-9)

Would surprise me if they receive a bid:
Indiana St (23-10)
San Francisco (21-11)
UTEP (23-10)
Boise St (21-13)
Ole Miss (19-14)
Ohio (23-11)
Cleveland St (21-11)
UNLV (20-13)


In bracket form:
1) Minnesota (20-13) vs. 8) Utah Valley (19-11)
4) Utah (21-11) vs. 5) Marquette (17-15)
3) Southern Miss (27-6) vs. 6) Maryland (17-15)
2) Missouri (22-11) vs. 7) Georgia St (25-8)

1) Florida St (19-13) vs. 8) FGCU (22-12)
4) Georgia (19-13) vs. 5) Indiana (17-15)
3) West Virginia (17-15) vs. 6) Iona (22-10)
2) Georgetown (17-14) vs. 7) Robert Morris (21-13)

1) Arkansas (21-11) vs. 8) High Point (16-14)
4) Clemson (20-12) vs. 5) Louisiana Tech (27-7)
3) St John's (20-12) vs. 6) Boston (24-10)
2) North Carolina St (21-13) vs. 7) Davidson (20-12)

1) California (19-13) vs. 8) UC Irvine (23-11)
4) Georgia (19-13) vs. 5) Richmond (19-14)
3) Illinois (19-14) vs. 6) Belmont (24-9)
2) Green Bay vs. 8) Vermont (22-10)

S-Curve 3/16 3:30 EST

As I continue my scrub, SMU is another team I'm docking.  Calling my shot now:  SMU and Iowa in the first four, surprising everyone.

ULL in, Georgia St out, and this changes a few things around.

Virginia to the 2 line with their 3, costing Kansas a 2 seed.

One more S-Curve is coming once I have a good sense on what is happening with the late games.  Basically, the only thing left is seeing if Kentucky and MSU can find an extra seed line.

The 1 line:  Florida (31-2), Arizona (30-4), Wichita St (34-0), Michigan (25-7)
The 2 line:  Wisconsin (26-7), Villanova (28-4), Iowa St (26-7), Virginia (28-6)
The 3 line:  Kansas (25-9), Duke (26-8), Louisville (29-5), Syracuse (27-5)
The 4 line:  Cincinnati (27-6), Creighton (26-7), UCLA (25-8), UConn (26-8)
The 5 line:  San Diego St (29-4), North Carolina (23-9), Michigan St (25-8), Oklahoma (23-9)
The 6 line:  Ohio St (25-9), New Mexico (27-6), Baylor (24-11), VCU (26-8)
The 7 line:  Texas (23-10), Kentucky (24-9), Oregon (23-8), UMass (24-8)
The 8 line:  St Louis (26-6), George Washington (24-8), Memphis (23-9), Gonzaga (28-6)
The 9 line:  Kansas St (20-12), Pittsburgh (25-9), Oklahoma St (21-12), St Joseph's (24-9)
The 10 line:  Providence (23-11), Colorado (23-11), Xavier (21-12), Stanford (21-12)
The 11 line:  Arizona St (21-11), Tennessee (21-12), Dayton (23-10), SMU (23-9), Iowa (20-12)
The 12 line:  BYU (23-11), Nebraska (19-12), Western Michigan (23-9), Tulsa (21-12), North Dakota St (25-6)
The 13 line:  New Mexico St (26-9), Manhattan (25-7), Harvard (26-4), Delaware (25-9)
The 14 line:  Eastern Kentucky (24-9), Stephen F Austin (31-2), Mercer (26-8), Milwaukee (21-13)
The 15 line:  Louisiana-Lafayette (23-11), North Carolina Central (28-5), American (20-12), Weber St (19-11)
The 16 line:  Wofford (20-12), Coastal Carolina (21-12), Albany (18-14), Mount St Mary's (16-16), Texas Southern (19-14), Cal Poly (13-19)

Last 2 in:
BYU
Nebraska

Last 5 out:
Minnesota (20-13)
Florida St (19-13)
California (19-13)
Arkansas (21-11)
Missouri (22-11)

Off the board, don't listen to what others say:  Green Bay, Southern Miss

3/16 noon bracket

SOUTH
@Orlando
1) Florida (31-2) vs. 16) Albany (18-14)/Mount St Mary's (16-16)
8) George Washington (24-8) vs. 9) Colorado (23-11)
@San Diego
4) UCLA (25-8) vs. 13) New Mexico St (26-9)
5) Michigan St (25-8) vs. 12) Tulsa (21-12)
@Raleigh
3) Louisville (29-5) vs. 14) Mercer (26-8)
6) New Mexico (27-6) vs. 11) Dayton (23-10)/Iowa (20-12)
@St Louis
2) Kansas (25-9) vs. 15) American (20-12)
7) Kentucky (24-9) vs. 10) Providence (23-11)

EAST
@Milwaukee
1) Michigan (25-7) vs. 16) Wofford (20-12)
8) St Louis (26-6) vs. 9) Pittsburgh (25-9)
@Spokane
4) UConn (26-8) vs. 13) Harvard (26-4)
5) North Carolina (23-9) vs. 12) North Dakota St (25-6)
@Raleigh
3) Duke (26-7) vs. 14) Georgia St (25-7)
6) Ohio St (25-9) vs. 11) Tennessee (21-12)
@Buffalo
2) Villanova (28-4) vs. 15) Milwaukee (21-13)
7) UMass (24-8) vs. 10) SMU (23-9)

MIDWEST
@St Louis
1) Wichita St (34-0) vs. 16) Texas Southern (19-14)/Cal Poly (13-19)
8) Memphis (23-9) vs. 9) Kansas St (20-12)
@San Antonio
4) Creighton (26-7) vs. 13) Manhattan (25-7)
5) Oklahoma (23-9) vs. 12) Western Michigan (23-9)
@Buffalo
3) Virginia (27-6) vs. 14) Eastern Kentucky (24-9)
6) Baylor (24-11) vs. 11) Arizona St (21-11)
@Milwaukee
2) Wisconsin (26-7) vs. 15) North Carolina Central (28-5)
7) Texas (23-10) vs. 10) Xavier (21-12)

WEST
@San Diego
1) Arizona (30-4) vs. 16) Coastal Carolina (21-12)
8) Gonzaga (28-6) vs. 9) Oklahoma St (21-12)
@Spokane
4) Cincinnati (27-6) vs. 13) Delaware (25-9)
5) San Diego St (29-4) vs. 12) BYU (23-11)/Nebraska (19-12)
@Orlando
3) Syracuse (27-5) vs. 14) Stephen F Austin (31-2)
6) VCU (26-7) vs. 11) Stanford (21-12)
@San Antonio
2) Iowa St (26-7) vs. 15) Weber St (19-11)
7) Oregon (23-8) vs. 10) St Joseph's (23-9)

S-Curve 3/16 noon

Scrubbed.

On the bubble, 7 teams for 2 spots.  Actually larger than I usually like on Selection Sunday, but I can't cut Arky or Mizz.  I wouldn't be surprised to see any mix or match of those 7 teams in the 2 spots selected.  I think this far down, superlatives matter, and BYU's non-con SoS of 4 and Nebraska's 3 top 25 wins barely separate them.

I'm most nervous about Florida St, who has the one winning record in road/neutral games among the bubble teams.  Cal and FSU are kind of similar in that they have bad records against the top 50.  Minny has just a slightly worse profile than Nebraska.

My surprise during the scrub was Iowa - this is not a secure team at all.  I don't think I could move 3 of the bubble teams ahead of them, but that profile took a nose dive the past few weeks.

The 1 line:  Florida (31-2), Arizona (30-4), Wichita St (34-0), Michigan (25-7)
The 2 line:  Wisconsin (26-7), Villanova (28-4), Kansas (25-9), Iowa St (26-7)
The 3 line:  Duke (26-7), Louisville (29-5), Virginia (27-6), Syracuse (27-5)
The 4 line:  Cincinnati (27-6), Creighton (26-7), UCLA (25-8), UConn (26-8)
The 5 line:  San Diego St (29-4), North Carolina (23-9), Michigan St (25-8), Oklahoma (23-9)
The 6 line:  Ohio St (25-9), New Mexico (27-6), VCU (26-7), Baylor (24-11)
The 7 line:  Texas (23-10), Kentucky (24-9), Oregon (23-8), UMass (24-8)
The 8 line:  St Louis (26-6), George Washington (24-8), Memphis (23-9), Gonzaga (28-6)
The 9 line:  Kansas St (20-12), Pittsburgh (25-9), Oklahoma St (21-12), Colorado (23-11)
The 10 line:  Providence (23-11), Xavier (21-12), St Joseph's (23-9), SMU (23-9)
The 11 line:  Stanford (21-12), Arizona St (21-11), Tennessee (21-12), Dayton (23-10), Iowa (20-12)
The 12 line:  BYU (23-11), Nebraska (19-12), Western Michigan (23-9), Tulsa (21-12), North Dakota St (25-6)
The 13 line:  New Mexico St (26-9), Manhattan (25-7), Harvard (26-4), Delaware (25-9)
The 14 line:  Eastern Kentucky (24-9), Stephen F Austin (31-2), Mercer (26-8), Georgia St (25-7)
The 15 line:  Milwaukee (21-13), North Carolina Central (28-5), American (20-12), Weber St (19-11)
The 16 line:  Wofford (20-12), Coastal Carolina (21-12), Albany (18-14), Mount St Mary's (16-16), Texas Southern (19-14), Cal Poly (13-19)

Last 2 in:
BYU
Nebraska

Last 5 out:
Minnesota (20-13)
Florida St (19-13)
California (19-13)
Arkansas (21-11)
Missouri (22-11)

Saturday, March 15, 2014

S-Curve 3/16 2AM

Disclaimer:  I'm in the middle of my scrub.  Good chance something changes overnight as I review things.  But as of midnight, here's where we stand.

FYI to the Bracket Matrix:  I'm planning a morning bracket and an afternoon bracket.  You can ignore the morning bracket if you're pressed for time.

The 1 line:  Florida (31-2), Arizona (30-4), Wichita St (33-0), Michigan (25-7)
The 2 line:  Villanova (28-4), Wisconsin (26-7), Duke (26-7), Virginia (27-6)
The 3 line:  Kansas (24-9), Syracuse (27-5), Louisville (29-5), Iowa St (26-7)
The 4 line:  San Diego St (27-4), Michigan St (25-8), Creighton (26-7), Cincinnati (27-6)
The 5 line:  North Carolina (23-9), UCLA (26-8), UConn (26-8), Ohio St (25-9)
The 6 line:  VCU (26-7), Oklahoma (23-9), New Mexico (27-6), Texas (23-10)
The 7 line:  Baylor (22-11), St Louis (25-6), George Washington (24-8), UMass (24-8)
The 8 line:  Pittsburgh (25-9), Memphis (22-9), Gonzaga (27-6), Kentucky (24-9)
The 9 line:  Oregon (23-9), Kansas St (20-11),  Colorado (23-11), Oklahoma St (22-11)
The 10 line:  SMU (23-9), Providence (23-11), Xavier (20-12), St Joseph's (23-9)
The 11 line:  Iowa (19-12), Stanford (21-12), Arizona St (21-11), Tennessee (20-12), Nebraska (19-12)
The 12 line:  Dayton (23-10), BYU (22-10), North Dakota St (22-6), Tulsa (21-12), Manhattan (25-7)
The 13 line:  Harvard (25-4), Mercer (23-8), New Mexico St (25-9), Delaware (25-9)
The 14 line:  Western Michigan (22-9), Stephen F Austin (27-2), North Carolina Central (26-5), Georgia St (23-7)
The 15 line:  Milwaukee (20-13), Eastern Kentucky (22-9), American (20-12), Weber St (17-11)
The 16 line:  Wofford (17-12), Coastal Carolina (18-12), Albany (19-14), Texas Southern (18-14), Mount St Mary's (16-16), Cal Poly (13-19)




Off the bubble, to the lockbox:  Providence, Tennessee

Last 3 in:
Nebraska
Dayton
BYU

Last 3 out:
Arkansas (21-11)
California (19-13)
Minnesota (19-13)

Off the bubble, to the NIT:  Southern Miss, Louisiana Tech, Green Bay

3/15 recap

Big 12 final:
Iowa St 74, Baylor 65

Pac-12 final:
UCLA 75, Arizona 71 - critical game for UCLA's seed.  let's say it's a 5 for now

Big East final:
Providence 65, Creighton 58 - that bubble decision is out of everyone's hand now

American final:
Louisville 71, UConn 61 - shut up Pitino.  Take your 3 seed and deal with it

MWC final:
New Mexico 64, San Diego St 58

Big 10 semis:
Michigan 72, Ohio St 69 - UM reluctantly to the 1 line
Michigan St 83, Wisconsin 75 - UW to the 2 line for good

ACC semis:
Virginia 51, Pittsburgh 48 - UVa still playing for the 2 line
Duke 75, NC State 67 - Duke probably locked into the 2 line now, win or lose Sunday

SEC semis:
Florida 56, Tennessee 49 - there were no stakes here
Kentucky 70, Georgia 58

A-10 semis:
St Joseph's 67, St Bonaventure 48
VCU 74, George Washington 55

CUSA final:
Tulsa 69, Louisiana Tech 60 - so all the talk was about SMiss in the preseason, LaTech gets the signature win, MTSU has the RPI and UTEP had the best overall body of work...and CUSA sends this team instead.  heh

MAC final:
Western Michigan 98, Toledo 77

Southland final:
Stephen F Austin 68, Sam Houston St 49

A-East final:
Albany 69, Stony Brook 60

Big Sky final:
Weber St 88, North Dakota 67

WAC final:
New Mexico St 77, Idaho 55

Big West final:
Cal Poly 61, Cal St-Northridge 59

MEAC final:
North Carolina Central 71, Morgan St 62

SWAC final:
Texas Southern 78, Prairie View A&M 73

Sun Belt semis:
Georgia St 72, Arkansas St 45
Louisiana-Lafayette 73, Western Kentucky 72


Sunday preview:
ACC final:  Duke/Virginia for almost no stakes
B1G final:  Michigan is the 1 seed for now.  If they lose?  Still debating about Michigan vs. Villanova.  Stay tuned
SEC final:  Actually an important game for Kentucky's seed to get out of that 7/8/9 area
A-10 final:  VCU/St Joe's may be worth a seeding line for both but nothing to get excited about
Sun Belt final:  one last NIT bid poaching situation in play with Georgia St

Friday, March 14, 2014

S-Curve 3/14

The 1 line:  Florida (30-2), Arizona (30-3), Wichita St (33-0), Wisconsin (26-6)
The 2 line:  Villanova (28-4), Michigan (24-7), Duke (25-7), Virginia (26-6)
The 3 line:  Kansas (24-9), Syracuse (27-5), San Diego St (27-3), Louisville (28-5)
The 4 line:  Iowa St (25-7), Creighton (26-6), Cincinnati (27-6), North Carolina (23-9)
The 5 line:  Michigan St (24-8), UConn (26-7), Ohio St (25-8), Oklahoma (23-9)
The 6 line:  Texas (23-10), VCU (25-7), UCLA (25-8), Baylor (22-10)
The 7 line:  New Mexico (26-6), St Louis (25-6), George Washington (24-7), UMass (24-8)
The 8 line:  Pittsburgh (25-8), Memphis (22-9), Gonzaga (27-6), Kentucky (23-9)
The 9 line:  Oregon (23-9), Kansas St (20-11),  Colorado (23-11), Oklahoma St (22-11)
The 10 line:  SMU (23-9), Xavier (20-12), Iowa (19-12), Stanford (21-12)
The 11 line:  St Joseph's (22-9), Arizona St (21-11), Tennessee (20-11), Nebraska (19-12), Dayton (23-10)
The 12 line:  Providence (22-11), BYU (22-10), Louisiana Tech (26-6), North Dakota St (22-6), New Mexico St (24-9)
The 13 line:  Manhattan (25-7), Harvard (25-4), Mercer (23-8), Delaware (25-9)
The 14 line:  Western Michigan (21-9), Stephen F Austin (26-2), North Carolina Central (25-5), Georgia St (22-7)
The 15 line:  Milwaukee (20-13), Eastern Kentucky (22-9), American (20-12), Stony Brook (22-9)
The 16 line:  Weber St (16-11), Wofford (17-12), Coastal Carolina (18-12), Texas Southern (17-14), Mount St Mary's (16-16), Cal-St Northridge (15-17)

Welcome to the lockbox:
Xavier, Iowa, Stanford, St Joseph's, Arizona St

The bubble is now 10 teams playing 5 spots.  However, everyone but Tennessee, Louisiana Tech, and North Carolina St mentioned below are in the clubhouse.  I will begin the scrubbing and probably update midday.

Last 5 in:
Tennessee
Nebraska
Dayton
Providence
BYU

Last 5 out:
Arkansas (21-11)
California (19-13)
Southern Miss (25-6)
Minnesota (19-13)
*Louisiana Tech
Green Bay (21-6)
special mention to North Carolina St (21-12) who can play their way onto the bottom part of this list with a win over Duke

Off the board:
Missouri, Florida St, St John's, Georgetown

No more bubble inception this season

3/14 recap

Big 12 semis:
Iowa St 94, Kansas 83
Baylor 86, Texas 69 - Baylor just became a lot more interesting to seed

Pac-12 semis:
Arizona 63, Colorado 43 - Arizona has probably clinched the #2 overall seed now
UCLA 84, Stanford 59 - well, good thing Stanford got a quality win before this one

ACC quarters:
Virginia 64, Florida St 51 - that's another bubble team we can get rid of
Pittsburgh 80, North Carolina 75 - well, Pitt took their damn time getting their first signature win of the year
North Carolina St 66, Syracuse 63 - sigh
Duke 63, Clemson 62

Big 10 quarters:
Michigan 64, Illinois 63 - going to be a tough call, Michigan and the 1 line...
Ohio St 71, Nebraska 67 - more on Nebraska in my S-Curve to be posted next
Wisconsin 83, Minnesota 57
Michigan St 67, Northwestern 51

Big East semis:
Providence 80, Seton Hall 74
Creighton 86, Xavier 78 - I'm starting to think Provi and X have done enough

SEC quarters:
Florida 72, Missouri 49 - another bubble team washed away
Tennessee 59, South Carolina 44
Kentucky 85, LSU 67 - winning these games will actually really help UK
Georgia 75, Ole Miss 73

A-10 quarters:
St Bonaventure 71, St Louis 68 - such a shame to see a good profile gone bad
St Joseph's 70, Dayton 67 - no lockbox yet for St Joe's, there's a bad loss to Bonaventure lurking
VCU 71, Richmond 53
George Washington 85, UMass 77

American semis:
Louisville 94, Houston 65 - now UL can try and get another quality win and get a probable 3 seed
UConn 58, Cincinnati 56

Mountain West semis:
San Diego St 59, UNLV 51
New Mexico 70, Boise St 67

CUSA semis:
Tulsa 76, MTSU 69
Louisiana Tech 88, Southern Miss 70 - well, what to do with USM...I'm not sure, frankly.  Still probably out though

MAC semis:
Western Michigan 64, Akron 60 (OT)
Toledo 59, Eastern Michigan 44 - top 2 hold serve; no NIT bid poaching here

Sun Belt quarters:
Arkansas St 116, Arkansas-Little Rock 114 (4OT)
Louisiana-Lafayette 91, Texas-Arlington 85 - funny sideplot:  with double byes, Georgia St and WKU haven't even started their championship week, and won't until tomorrow.  what

Big West semis:
Cal Poly 61, UC Irvine 58 - NIT bid poached
Cal St-Northridge 82, Long Beach St 77

Big Sky semis:
North Dakota 79, Portland St 63
Weber St 66, Northern Colorado 63 (OT)

Southland semis:
Stephen F Austin 85, Northwestern St 78
Sam Houston St 69, Texas A&M-CC 63

WAC semis:
Idaho 74, Utah Valley 69 - NIT bid poached
New Mexico St 69, Cal St-Bakersfield 63 - things just opened up for NMSU here

MEAC semis:
North Carolina Central 68, Norfolk St 45
Morgan St 79, Coppin St 64

SWAC semis:
Texas Southern 73, Alabama St 61
Prairie View A&M 55, Alabama A&M 49

Saturday preview:
one-bid league conference titles in the SWAC, MEAC, WAC, S'land, Big Sky, Big West, and Sun Belt.  MAC finals.  CUSA finals.

Championship games of note:
American:  Louisville/UConn playing for larg eamounts of S-Curve equity
Mountain West:  SDSU/New Mexico for all of the seedings
Big East:  Creighton/Provi, actually not that useful for bubble purposes
Big 12:  Iowa St playing for the 2 line, Baylor playing for...I'm not even sure.  5?
Pac-12:  Arizona is locked into the #2 overall seed, but UCLA could use the help

Semifinals:
B1G:  Wisky/Michigan might be on a collision course for deciding the 4th 1 seed
ACC:  Is NC State on the bubble?  We'll revisit if they beat Duke
SEC:  Georgia's too far away, Tennessee is probably safe, the drama will not be here the next 2 days
A-10:  St Joe's needs to hold serve against Bonaventure

Thursday, March 13, 2014

S-Curve 3/14

The 1 line:  I don't know.  Villanova stays on the 1 line for Friday.  However, I fully anticipate one of Wisconsin and Michigan winning the B1G and taking that 1 seed, and Syracuse taking it from Nova if one of those two can't.

The 1 line:  Florida (29-2), Arizona (29-3), Wichita St (33-0), Villanova (28-4)
The 2 line:  Wisconsin (25-6), Michigan (23-7), Syracuse (27-4), Kansas (24-8)
The 3 line:  Duke (24-7), San Diego St (26-3), Virginia (25-6), Cincinnati (27-5)
The 4 line:  North Carolina (23-8), Louisville (27-5), Creighton (25-6), Iowa St (24-7)
The 5 line:  Michigan St (23-8), St Louis (25-5), Texas (23-9), UConn (25-7)
The 6 line:  Oklahoma (23-9), Ohio St (24-8), UMass (24-7), VCU (24-7)
The 7 line:  UCLA (24-8), New Mexico (25-6), George Washington (23-7), Baylor (21-10)
The 8 line:  Memphis (22-9), Gonzaga (27-6), Kentucky (22-9), Oregon (23-9)
The 9 line:  Kansas St (20-11),  Colorado (23-10), Oklahoma St (22-11), Pittsburgh (24-8)
The 10 line:  SMU (23-9), Xavier (20-11), Stanford (21-11), Iowa (19-12)
The 11 line:  Arizona St (21-11), St Joseph's (21-9), Nebraska (19-11), Dayton (23-9), Tennessee (19-11)
The 12 line:  BYU (22-10), Providence (21-11), Louisiana Tech (25-6), North Dakota St (22-6), Manhattan (25-7)
The 13 line:  Harvard (25-4), Mercer (23-8), Delaware (25-9), Western Michigan (20-9)
The 14 line:  Stephen F Austin (25-2), UC Irvine (21-10), North Carolina Central (24-5), Georgia St (22-7)
The 15 line:  Milwaukee (20-13), Eastern Kentucky (22-9), American (20-12), Stony Brook (22-9)
The 16 line:  Utah Valley (18-10), Weber St (15-11), Wofford (17-12), Coastal Carolina (18-12), Texas Southern (16-14), Mount St Mary's (16-16)


The bubble is now 19 teams playing 10 spots.  And frankly, we'll be trimming it even more in the next day or two.  G'town and St John's are spending their last day on the bubble.  On the other end, I can't see Xavier/Stanford/Iowa/Arizona St missing at this point, and all will likely come off the page tomorrow unless too many wacky things happen.

BYU has to slip some because of the injury but I stopped in between Tennessee and Provi.

Bubble in:
Xavier
Stanford

Next 4 in:
Iowa
Arizona St
Nebraska
St Joseph's

Last 4 in:
Dayton
Tennessee
BYU
Providence

Last 4 out:
Arkansas (21-11)
California (19-13)
Southern Miss (25-5)
Minnesota (19-12)

Next 4 out:
Missouri (22-10)
Florida St (19-12)
Green Bay (21-6)
St John's (20-12)

Bubble inception:  WE NEED TO GO DEEPER
*Louisiana Tech
Georgetown (17-14)

3/13 recap

Big East quarterfinals:
Seton Hall 64, Villanova 63 - well, that doesn't help everyone's confusion about who's the 4th 1 seed.  I'm not even sure myself, as I write this
Providence 79, St John's 74 - critical development for Providence as Nova is gone from their bracket.  That comes close to popping their bubble.  A loss to the Hall pops their bubble and a win does nothing.  They really needed to play Nova to have a chance to make it, because a loss is harmless and a win is signature.  I think Provi is right on the edge as is
Creighton 84, DePaul 62
Xavier 68, Marquette 65

Big 12 quarterfinals:
Iowa St 91, Kansas St 85
Kansas 77, Oklahoma St 70 - Kansas/ISU is a sexy semifinal with very high S-Curve stakes
Baylor 78, Oklahoma 73
Texas 66, West Virginia 49 - that's the end of WVU

Big 10 1st round:
Illinois 64, Indiana 54
Ohio St 63, Purdue 61
Minnesota 63, Penn St 56
Northwestern 67, Iowa 62 - um, everyone needs to go take a look at Iowa's resume really quick...

Pac-12 quarters:
Arizona 71, Utah 39 - ok, that's the end of this Utah silliness
Colorado 59, California 56 - Cal and Providence right now is Bubble Ground Zero for me
UCLA 82, Oregon 63
Stanford 79, Arizona St 58 - optimal bubble result for the Pac-12

ACC 2nd round:
Florida St 67, Maryland 65
Pittsburgh 84, Wake Forest 55
NC State 67, Miami 58
Clemson 69, Georgia Tech 65 (OT)

SEC 2nd round:
Missouri 91, Texas A&M 83 (2OT) - good god, Mizzou can't even help from messing up popping their own bubble
South Carolina 71, Arkansas 69 - ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.  This not only is a dagger to Arkansas but all of a sudden provides Tennessee with a way to play their way out tomorrow
LSU 68, Alabama 56
Ole Miss 78, Mississippi St 66

American quarters:
Houston 68, SMU 64 - SMU's seed is going to plummet, but they're fine, folks

Louisville 92, Rutgers 31 - no, Pitino, margin of victory isn't going to erase your profile problems
Cincinnati 61, Central Florida 58
UConn 72, Memphis 53 - that's a result worth a seeding line for both teams

A-10 1st round:
St Bonaventure 82, LaSalle 72
Dayton 87, Fordham 74 - Dayton/St Joe's is lined up.  Winner to the lockbox
Richmond 76, Duquesne 64
UMass 65, Rhode Island 61

MWC quarters:
San Diego St 73, Utah St 39
UNLV 71, Wyoming 67
New Mexico 93, Fresno St 77
Boise St 75, Nevada 62

CUSA quarters:
Tulsa 70, Tulane 49
MTSU 62, Old Dominion 48
Southern Miss 64, UTEP 56
Louisiana Tech 86, Charlotte 65 - the quad-champs hold serve in this conference

MAC quarters:
Akron 83, Ohio 77
Eastern Michigan 69, Buffalo 64

Big West quarters:
Cal Poly 69, UC Santa Barbara 38 - sense.  this makes none
Long Beach St 66, Cal St-Fullerton 56
UC Irvine 63, UC Riverside 43
Cal St-Northridge 87, Hawaii 84

WAC quarters:
Utah Valley 83, Texas-Pan American 63
Idaho 73, UMKC 70
Cal St-Bakersfield 68, Chicago St 62
New Mexico St 70, Seattle 68

Sun Belt 1st round:
Arkansas-Little Rock 74, Troy 61
Texas-Arlington 68, Louisiana-Monroe 65

Big Sky 1st round:
North Dakota 79, Sacramento St 76
Northern Colorado 62, Northern Arizona 60
Portland St 70, Montana 63

Southland quarters:
Northwestern St 88, Nicholls St 72
Sam Houston St 70, Oral Roberts 61

MEAC quarters:
Morgan St 81, Florida A&M 68
Norfolk St 57, Savannah St 47

SWAC quarters:
Alabama St 64, Alcorn St 51
Alabama A&M 69, Arkansas-Pine Bluff 50 - justice!  the semifinals here feature 4 eligible schools.  no need to sweat the details here


Friday:
ACC quarters:  FSU gets their chance against Virginia, Pitt can visit the lockbox with a win over UNC.  Duke and Syracuse playing for the 1 line
SEC quarters:  Mizzou gets their chance against Florida, Tennessee needs to hold serve against South Carolina
Big 10 quarters:  Nebraska playing for the lockbox against Ohio St, Minnesota playing for its life against Wisky
A-10 quarters:  Dayton/St Joe's is a titanic bubble game.  UMass/GWU is interesting for S-Curve purposes
CUSA semis:  Southern Miss/La Tech, your two CUSA bubble teams, play each other.  One will survive to stay on the bubble
Big 12 semis:  no bubble drama, but with Iowa St/Kansas and Baylor/Texas, tons of S-Curve implications
Big East semis:  Provi must hold against Seton Hall; Xavier has an optional game with Creighton
Pac-12 semis:  bubble drama is over here, Arizona/Colorado and Stanford/UCLA is for positioning now
American semis:  funny development - Louisville needs quality wins to rise to the 2 line, but get Rutgers and Houston before the finals, which means they can't get to the 2 line.  UConn/Cincy in the other half of the bracket

Ivy League recap

This is part 32 of a 32-part series covering each conference and conference tournament.  These previews are meant to provide every bracketologist with the information they need to make informed projections about the teams of the conference.

The standings:
Harvard 13-1
Yale 9-5
Princeton 8-6
Columbia 8-6
Brown 7-7
Dartmouth 5-9
Penn 5-9
Cornell 1-13

The stakes:
No conference tournament here.  Harvard (26-4) is looking at the 13 line.  Obviously, the seasons of Dartmouth (12-16), Penn (8-20), and Cornell (2-26) are over.

How about the others?  I have them as borderline CBI/CIT candidates.  A couple of them will inevitably get bids.  Yale (15-13) being the top candidate, slightly, finishing 2nd.  Princeton (20-8) has the shiny RPI and record, so probably them.  Columbia (19-12) and Brown (15-13) more borderline.

And there we go.  A 32-part series that covered every team in D-1 except independent NJIT (13-16).  Boom.

S-Curve 3/12

Boston and their 13 seed are out.  American and their 15 seed are in.  Some minor shuffling on the 13-15 lines to accomodate.  Everyone else stands put.  But just for one more day.  We start moving and shaking tomorrow.

Also trimmed the fat on the bubble.  Right now it's 22 teams playing 11 spots.

The 1 line:  Florida (29-2), Arizona (28-3), Wichita St (33-0), Villanova (28-3)
The 2 line:  Wisconsin (25-6), Michigan (23-7), Syracuse (27-4), Kansas (23-8)
The 3 line:  Duke (24-7), San Diego St (25-3), Virginia (25-6), Cincinnati (26-5)
The 4 line:  North Carolina (23-8), Louisville (26-5), Creighton (24-6), Iowa St (23-7)
The 5 line:  Michigan St (23-8), St Louis (25-5), Oklahoma (23-8), Texas (22-9)
The 6 line:  UConn (24-7), Ohio St (23-8), UMass (23-7), VCU (24-7)
The 7 line:  Memphis (22-8), UCLA (23-8), New Mexico (24-6), George Washington (23-7)
The 8 line:  Gonzaga (27-6), Kentucky (22-9), Oregon (23-8), Baylor (20-10)
The 9 line:  Kansas St (20-11), SMU (23-8), Colorado (22-10), Oklahoma St (21-11)
The 10 line:  Iowa (19-11), Arizona St (21-10), Pittsburgh (23-8), Xavier (19-11)
The 11 line:  BYU (22-10), Stanford (20-11), St Joseph's (21-9), Nebraska (19-11), Arkansas (21-10)
The 12 line:  Tennessee (19-11), Dayton (22-9), Louisiana Tech (24-6), North Dakota St (22-6), Manhattan (25-7)
The 13 line:  Harvard (25-4), Mercer (23-8), Delaware (25-9), Western Michigan (20-9)
The 14 line:  Stephen F Austin (25-2), UC Irvine (20-10), North Carolina Central (24-5), Georgia St (22-7)
The 15 line:  Milwaukee (20-13), Eastern Kentucky (22-9), American (20-12), Stony Brook (22-9)
The 16 line:  Utah Valley (17-10), Weber St (15-11), Wofford (17-12), Coastal Carolina (18-12), Texas Southern (16-14), Mount St Mary's (16-16)

Bubble in:
Iowa
Arizona St
Pittsburgh

Next 4 in:
Xavier
BYU
Stanford
St Joseph's

Last 4 in:
Nebraska
Arkansas
Tennessee
Dayton

Last 4 out:
California (19-12)
Minnesota (18-12)
Providence (20-11)
Southern Miss (24-5)

Next 4 out:
St John's (20-11)
Missouri (21-10)
Florida St (18-12)
West Virginia (17-14)

Bubble inception:  WE NEED TO GO DEEPER
Green Bay (21-6)
Georgetown (17-14)
*Louisiana Tech
Utah (19-10)

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

3/12 NIT projections

I'll present my entire NIT S-Curve in linear form, to tell you where I see things standing:

Bubble teams not in NCAA field (11 spots):
California (19-12)
Minnesota (18-12)
Providence (20-11)
Southern Miss (24-5)
St John's (20-11)
Missouri (21-10)
Florida St (18-12)
West Virginia (17-14)
Green Bay (21-6)
Georgetown (17-14)
Utah (19-10)

NIT autobids (8 spots, would be 9 but I listed Green Bay above):
FGCU (20-12)
Belmont (23-9)
High Point (14-14)
Vermont (20-10)
Davidson (19-12)
Boston (24-10)
Iona (22-10)
Robert Morris (21-13)

Off the NCAA bubble, but are NIT locks.  I just can't see these teams missing (7 teams):
Clemson (19-11)
LSU (18-12)
Georgia (18-12)
Illinois (18-13)
North Carolina St (19-12)
Maryland (16-14)
Toledo (25-5)

NIT bubble.  Right now I have 15 teams for 6 spots for the bubble:
Indiana (17-14)
Marquette (17-14)
St Mary's (21-11)
Richmond (18-13)
Indiana St (21-10)
Washington (17-15)
---cutline---
Boise St (18-12)
San Francisco (19-11)
Middle Tennessee (21-8)
New Mexico St (22-9)
Ole Miss (18-13)
UNLV (19-12)
Oregon St (16-15)
Tulsa (18-12)
Ohio (20-10)
(I just can't see any possible case for any team past this)

I define bid poaching as a situation where an at-large NIT bid disappears because a team jumps from no postseason (or a CBI/CIT bid) to a NCAA or NIT bid.

Conference tournaments where bid poaching can definitely happen (6):
Big Sky, Big West, MEAC, Southland, Sun Belt, WAC

Conference tournaments where bid poaching might or might not happen (2):
CUSA (if Southern Miss or La Tech win, no bid poaching will happen.  Anyone else, bid poaching happens)
MAC (same as CUSA, but with Western Michigan and Toledo instead)

Other conference tournaments are the big boy ones and would require massive upsets to be a bid poaching situation.

Bracketed version (geography is still a bit rough, I can't find easy solutions to some of these.  I'll probably try harder to make everything fit in my Sunday projections)
1) California vs. 8) High Point
4) Illinois vs. 5) Marquette
3) Green Bay vs. 6) Washington
2) Missouri vs. 7) Belmont

1) Minnesota vs. 8) Robert Morris
4) LSU vs. 5) North Carolina St
3) Clemson vs. 6) Indiana St
2) St John's vs. 7) Boston

1) Providence vs. 8) Vermont
4) Toledo vs. 5) Indiana
3) Utah vs. 6) St Mary's
2) West Virginia vs. 7) Iona

1) Southern Miss vs. 8) Davidson
4) Georgia vs. 5) Maryland
3) Georgetown vs. 6) Richmond
2) Florida St vs. 7) FGCU

3/12 recap

Patriot final
American 55, Boston 36 - this costs the conference about 2 seed lines

Big 12 1st round
Oklahoma St 80, Texas Tech 62
Baylor 76, TCU 68 - the two Big 12 teams even in the slightest danger win, so we're all set in this conference

ACC 1st round
Wake Forest 81, Notre Dame 69
Miami 57, Virginia Tech 53
Georgia Tech 73, Boston College 70 (OT)

Pac-12 1st round
Utah 67, Washington 61 - UW is not a NIT lock...
Colorado 59, USC 56
Oregon 88, Oregon St 74
Stanford 74, Washington St 63 - critical holds of serve of everyone in this conference

Big East 1st round
Seton Hall 51, Butler 50
DePaul 60, Georgetown 56 - DePaul?  Seriously?  I'm not completely removing G'town from my bubble, but I've got about 10 teams in between them and the cutline right now.  That's just about impossible to make up.

American 1st round
Rutgers 72, South Florida 68
Central Florida 94, Temple 90 (2OT)

SEC 1st round
South Carolina 74, Auburn 56
Mississippi St 82, Vanderbilt 68

A-10 opening round
Fordham 70, George Mason 67

MWC 1st round
Utah St 73, Colorado St 69
Fresno St 61, Air Force 59
Boise St 83, San Jose St 52

CUSA 2nd round
Tulane 66, North Texas 61
Old Dominion 73, Marshall 58
UTEP 77, East Carolina 68
Charlotte 80, UAB 70

MAC 2nd round
Ohio 63, Miami(OH) 55
Eastern Michigan 53, Northern Illinois 48

MEAC quarters
North Carolina Central 92, Howard 46
Coppin St 83, Hampton 77 - significant in-conference upset

Southland 1st round
Nicholls St 71, SE Louisiana 64
Oral Roberts 66, McNeese St 62

SWAC quarters
Texas Southern 79, Grambling St 54
Prairie View A&M 64, Southern 46 - ok, SWAC.  there goes the conference leader who was ineligible for the postseason anyways


Thursday:
Big 12 quarters:  K-State/Iowa St starts it off.  OSU/Kansas has seeding implications.  So does Baylor/Oklahoma.  WVU's impossible dream begins against Texas.
ACC 2nd round:  Florida St in desperation mode against Maryland.  Pitt in hold-serve mode against Wake.
SEC 2nd round:  Missouri gets A&M, Arkansas gets South Carolina
A-10 1st round:  Dayton in a hold-serve game against Fordham.
Pac-12 quarters:  Utah gets Arizona and their chance to be heard.  Colorado/Cal in a HUGE game for Cal.  Oregon/UCLA is of interest too.  Stanford can buy some safety with a win over Arizona St.
Big 10 1st round:  Minnesota must hold serve against PSU.  Iowa is really bringing the bubble into play, must beat Northwestern.
Big East quarters:  St John's/Provi is an elimination game.  Xavier must hold against Marquette
CUSA quarters:  Southern Miss actually gets a true road game against UTEP.  It's not a trivial resume game
American quarters:  Memphis/UConn has massive S-Curve implications.

Western Athletic conference tournament

This is part 31 of a 32-part series covering each conference and conference tournament.  These previews are meant to provide very bracketologist with the information they need to make informed projections about the teams of the conference.

The standings:
Utah Valley 13-3
New Mexico St 12-4
Grand Canyon 10-6
Chicago St 8-8
UMKC 7-9
Idaho 7-9
Cal St-Bakersfield 5-11
Seattle 5-11
Texas-Pan American 5-11

Tournament format:
Vegas is your host from March 13-15.  Grand Canyon is ineligible (transitional D1) so the other 8 play in a simple-format tournament.

The matchups:
1) Utah Valley (19-10) vs. 8) Texas-Pan American (9-22)
4) UMKC (10-19) vs. 5) Idaho (14-17)
3) Chicago St (13-18) vs. 6) Cal St-Bakersfield (12-18)
2) New Mexico St (23-9) vs. 7) Seattle (13-16)

The stakes:
New Mexico St is probably a 13 seed; everyone else is on the 16 line.  So, no stakes.  UVU and NMSU are your two teams with a postseason chance - it's starting to look like NMSU will miss the NIT cutline.  So there's not much to analyze here, frankly.  Terrible conference from 3rd on back.

Big Sky conference tournament

This is part 30 of a 32-part series covering each conference and conference tournament.  These previews are meant to provide every bracketologist with the information they need to make informed projections about the teams of the conference.

The standings:
Weber St 14-6
North Dakota 12-8
Northern Arizona 12-8
Montana 12-8
North Dakota 12-8
Portland St 11-9
Northern Colorado 11-9
Sacramento St 10-10
Eastern Washington 10-10
Montana St 9-11
Idaho St 8-12
Southern Utah 1-19

Tournament format:
Weber State hosts the entire tournament in Ogden, Utah.  But somehow, only the top 7 teams get to play in it.  In an 11 team conference!  It means Eastern Washington (15-16), at 10-10 in the conference, is done for the year.  So is Montana St (14-17), Idaho St (11-18), and Southern Utah (2-27).  .500 in conference not good enough for the conference tournament...my goodness.

By having 7 teams, the 1 seed gets a bye to the semifinals...and gets the lowest remaining seed.  They STACKED this thing for the top seed.

March 13-15 are the dates.

The matchups:
2) North Dakota (15-15) vs. 7) Sacramento St (14-15)
3) Northern Arizona (15-16) vs. 6) Northern Colorado (17-12)
4) Montana (17-12) vs. 5) Portland St (16-13)

1) Weber St (17-11) vs. lowest remaining seed

The stakes:
Maybe Weber St can avoid the 16 line, but no one else in this conference would be able to.  Simple stakes then.

More interesting is the CBI/CIT race.  Montana, PSU, UNC, UND enter the tourney as eligible, but SSU and UNA needing a pair of wins.  Not everyone will get an invite just due to sheer crowding.  Who gets the postseason bids?

Big West conference tournament

This is part 29 of a 32-part series covering each conference and conference tournament.  These previews are meant to provide every bracketologist with the information they need to make informed projections about the teams of the conference.

The standings:
UC Irvine 13-3
UC Santa Barbara 12-4
Long Beach St 10-6
Hawaii 9-7
Cal St-Northridge 7-9
Cal St-Fullerton 6-10
Cal Poly 6-10
UC Riverside 5-11
UC Davis 4-12

Tournament format:
Anaheim is your neutral site host from March 13-15.  No fancy bells or whistles in this bracket, although only top 8 of 9 are invited, so bye UC Davis (9-22).

The matchups:
2) UC Santa Barbara (21-8) vs. 7) Cal Poly (10-19)
3) Long Beach St (14-16) vs. 6) Cal-St Fullerton (11-19)
1) UC Irvine (22-10) vs. 8) UC Riverside (10-20)
4) Hawaii (20-10) vs. 5) Cal St-Northridge (15-17)

The stakes:
The top two in this conference actually did some work this season.  Irvine won at Washington and Denver; UCSB beat @UNLV, South Dakota St and Cal.  This all means the 13 line is still in play for both.  Maybe 14 line.  It'll depend what happens elsewhere.  The rest of the conference is more 15 seed and 16 seed material.

Despite the resumes, they have no NIT chances (except Irvine, obviously).  Long Beach St doesn't have postseason chances because of their brutal non-con scheduling tendencies.  Hawaii has the profile of a postseason team but travel could destroy those hopes.  It's looking like UCI and UCSB are the only postseason teams here.

Sun Belt conference tournament

This is part 28 of a 32-part series covering each conference and conference tournament.  These previews are meant to provide every bracketologist with the information they need to make informed projections about the teams of the conference.

The standings:
Georgia St 17-1
Western Kentucky 12-6
Louisiana-Lafayette 11-7
Arkansas St 10-8
Arkansas-Little Rock 9-9
Texas-Arlington 9-9
Louisiana-Monroe 7-11
Troy 6-12
South Alabama 5-13
Texas St 4-14

Tournament format:
New Orleans is your neutral site host.  Only the top 8 qualify for this, so the seasons of South Alabama (11-20) and Texas St (8-23) are done.  Games from March 13-16.

This is a staggered bracket.  Top 2 seeds get a double bye to the semifinals, 3/4 a single bye.  This is likely in response to the fact that this conference tournament always produces ridiculous upsets.

The matchups:
5) Arkansas-Little Rock (14-16) vs. 8) Troy (11-19)
6) Texas-Arlington (14-16) vs. 7) Louisiana-Monroe (10-16)

4) Arkansas St (18-12) vs. 5/8 winner
3) Louisiana-Lafayette (20-11) vs. 6/7 winner

1) Georgia St (24-7)  vs. 4/5/8 winner
2) Western Kentucky (20-11) vs. 3/6/7 winner

The stakes:
Georgia St is probably a 14 seed, maybe 15.  Good RPI in the 70s, no quality wins at all.  Everyone else would be staring at the 15 line.  ULL and WKU would miss the 16 line; ULL won at La Tech and WKU versus Southern Miss. Those two teams are at least probably CBI/CIT teams, and maybe ASU as well.

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

S-Curve 3/12

Note for the Bracket Matrix:  in the past I've been artificially editing the timestamps on the posts, to make the S-Curve show up at the top.  However, given you're likely going with more constant updates, to avoid confusion, I will stop doing that.

Tweaks to the Tuesday bracket:
1) Kansas down from 6 overall to 8.  Adjusting for Embid.
2) Milwaukee to the 15 line.  2 road wins against Green Bay is there, but those are the only two Top 100 wins.  They'll probably worm their way to the 14 line after attrition in the other conference tournaments.
3) 6 teams between BYU and the bubble.  Let the watching begin.
4) Mount St Mary's is headed to Dayton with Coastal Carolina and the SWAC winner.  Wofford is the Dayton bubble team.
5) I'll do an updated NIT bracket very soon.  Bid poaching is a significant development.

The 1 line:  Florida (29-2), Arizona (28-3), Wichita St (33-0), Villanova (28-3)
The 2 line:  Wisconsin (25-6), Michigan (23-7), Syracuse (27-4), Kansas (23-8)
The 3 line:  Duke (24-7), San Diego St (25-3), Virginia (25-6), Cincinnati (26-5)
The 4 line:  North Carolina (23-8), Louisville (26-5), Creighton (24-6), Iowa St (23-7)
The 5 line:  Michigan St (23-8), St Louis (25-5), Oklahoma (23-8), Texas (22-9)
The 6 line:  UConn (24-7), Ohio St (23-8), UMass (23-7), VCU (24-7)
The 7 line:  Memphis (22-8), UCLA (23-8), New Mexico (24-6), George Washington (23-7)
The 8 line:  Gonzaga (27-6), Kentucky (22-9), Oregon (22-8), Baylor (19-10)
The 9 line:  Kansas St (20-11), SMU (23-8), Colorado (21-10), Oklahoma St (20-11)
The 10 line:  Iowa (19-11), Arizona St (21-10), Pittsburgh (23-8), Xavier (19-11)
The 11 line:  BYU (22-10), Stanford (19-11), St Joseph's (21-9), Nebraska (19-11), Arkansas (21-10)
The 12 line:  Tennessee (19-11), Dayton (22-9), Louisiana Tech (24-6), North Dakota St (22-6), Manhattan (25-7)
The 13 line:  Harvard (25-4), Mercer (23-8), Delaware (25-9), Boston (24-9)
The 14 line:  Western Michigan (20-9), Stephen F Austin (25-2), UC Irvine (20-10), North Carolina Central (23-5)
The 15 line:  Georgia St (22-7), Milwaukee (20-13), Eastern Kentucky (22-9), Stony Brook (22-9)
The 16 line:  Utah Valley (17-10), Weber St (15-11), Wofford (17-12), Coastal Carolina (18-12), Texas Southern (15-14), Mount St Mary's (16-16)

Tail end of the lockbox:
Oregon
Baylor
Kansas St
SMU

Bubble in:
Colorado
Oklahoma St
Iowa
Arizona St
Pittsburgh

Next 4 in:
Xavier
BYU
Stanford
St Joseph's

Last 4 in:
Nebraska
Arkansas
Tennessee
Dayton

Last 4 out:
California (19-12)
Minnesota (18-12)
Georgetown (17-13)
Providence (20-11)

Next 4 out:
Southern Miss (24-5)
St John's (20-11)
Missouri (21-10)
Florida St (18-12)

Bubble inception:  WE NEED TO GO DEEPER
West Virginia (17-14)
Green Bay (21-6)
*Louisiana Tech

3/11 recap

Princeton 70, Penn 65 - and with that, we bid adieu to the regular season of this college basketball season

Conference championship watch:

WCC final:
Gonzaga 75, BYU 64 - BYU will start the business end of championship week about 6 or 7 spots above the cutline, and they will be trying to dodge bullets as teams below them try to play their way past them on the S-Curve.  Let the fun begin

Horizon final:
Milwaukee 69, Wright St 63

Summit final:
North Dakota St 60, IPFW 57

NEC final:
Mount St Mary's 88, Robert Morris 71 - good news, we just found the team that will occupy spot 68 on the S-Curve

CUSA 1st round:
North Texas 63, Rice 62 (OT)
Marshall 63, Florida Atlantic 59
East Carolina 79, UTSA 76

SWAC 1st round:
Grambling 84, Jackson St 75
Prairie View A&M 79, Mississippi Valley St 63

MEAC 1st round:
Howard 53, North Carolina A&T 47
Coppin St 75, Bethune-Cookman 68
Florida A&M 65, Delaware 61


Wednesday, the big boys start to get underway:
Pac-12 starts.  Utah (Washington), Colorado (USC), Oregon (OSU), and Stanford (Wazzu) are in hold-serve situations
Big 12 starts.  Okla St (TTU) and Baylor (TCU) are in hold-serve situations
Big East starts.  Georgetown (DePaul) in a hold-serve situation
Patriot final:  American/Boston, and Boston can get a 13 seed

Atlantic Coast conference tournament

This is part 27 of a 32-part series covering each conference and conference tournament.  These previews are meant to provide every bracketologist with the information they need to make informed projections about the teams of the conference.


The standings:
Virginia 16-2
Syracuse 14-4
Duke 13-5
North Carolina 13-5
Pittsburgh 11-7
Clemson 10-8
North Carolina St 9-9
Maryland 9-9
Florida St 9-9
Miami 7-11
Georgia Tech 6-12
Wake Forest 6-12
Notre Dame 6-12
Boston College 4-14
Virginia Tech 2-16

Tournament format:
15 teams, so this is using the format the old Big East popularized.  Top 4 seeds get a double bye to the quarterfinals, and the bottom 6 have to win 5 times to win the tourney.  Dates are March 12-16.


The matchups:
12) Wake Forest (16-15) vs. 13) Notre Dame (15-16)
10) Miami (16-15) vs. 15) Virginia Tech (9-12)
11) Georgia Tech (15-16) vs. 14) Boston College (8-23)

8) Maryland (17-14) vs. 9) Florida St (18-12)
5) Pittsburgh (23-8) vs. 12/13 winner
7) North Carolina St (19-12) vs. 10/15 winner
6) Clemson (19-11) vs. 11/14 winner

1) Virginia (25-6) vs. 8/9 winner
4) North Carolina (23-8) vs. 5/12/13 winner
2) Syracuse (27-4) vs. 7/10/15 winner
3) Duke (24-7) vs. 6/11/14 winner

The stakes:
I have the top 4 in protected seed range.  I think it's likely all 4 stay there.  The battle will be to see who gets to the 2 line.  I think if Syracuse, Virginia, or Duke make it to the final, they'll probably get to the 2 line; UNC would need to win the whole thing, and even then, I don't think they can make it up.

Pittsburgh.  Dear God, please don't lose against the 12/13 seed.  If you manage that, you're probably safe because signature win opportunities would be all that would remain.

Florida St starts with Maryland.  Obviously, must win.  Beating Virginia probably turns them into a 50/50 chance.  They at least have the non-con bullets (N-UMass and VCU) to fire with if they get the Virginia win.  Now, if they combine UVa with UNC...

Strangely, that's the extent of the bubble drama.  Clemson is far enough from the bubble that they would need to beat Duke, and then probably Syracuse too to be 50/50 for the tournament.  NC State would have to get the same 2 wins, and I don't think that would be enough.  Maryland would have to get the Virginia/UNC double, and it wouldn't be enough.  NC State is probably a NIT team along with Clemson; Maryland might not even be that.

CBI/CIT drama?  They probably won't play, but Miami/Wake/GT/UND are all in play there.

Pac-12 conference tournament

This is part 26 of a 32-part series covering each conference and conference tournament.  These previews are meant to provide every bracketologist with the information they need to make informed projections about the teams of the conference.

The standings:
Arizona 15-3
UCLA 12-6
Arizona St 10-8
California 10-8
Colorado 10-8
Stanford 10-8
Oregon 10-8
Utah 9-9
Washington 9-9
Oregon St 8-10
Washington St 3-15
USC 2-16

Tournament format:
Las Vegas is your neutral site host.  March 12-15.  Typical bracket setup.

The matchups:
8) Utah (20-10) vs. 9) Washington (17-14)
5) Colorado (21-10) vs. 12) USC (11-20)
7) Oregon (22-8) vs. 10) Oregon St (16-14)
6) Stanford (19-11) vs. 11) Washington St (10-20)

1) Arizona (28-3) vs. 8/9 winner
4) California (19-12) vs. 5/12 winner
2) UCLA (23-8) vs. 7/10 winner
3) Arizona St (21-10) vs. 6/11 winner

The stakes:
Arizona's gonna be on the 1 line.  UCLA could use a quality win or two to help with seeding, and the chance at Oregon early qualifies for that.

Arizona St and Oregon are the two teams that recently got off my bubble and into the lockbox.  Oregon still only has the two wins over lock tourney teams, but they'll be fine.  A loss early would massively hurt seeding, though.  Same deal for Arizona St.  In fact, on second look, I'm not so sure they shouldn't be on the bubble...but I don't think they can fall enough spots to miss the tournament.

Colorado is probably OK.  Since the Dinwiddie injury, they've basically shown they're a bubble team.  One marginal loss at Utah...other losses on  the road and excusable, and to Arizona...beat Stanford at Stanford, beat Arizona St...mediocre profile.  However, combining that with a sterling profile pre-injury, they'll be fine.  Just beat USC to be sure.

Stanford.  First off, beat Washington St.  Is a win over Arizona St mandatory?  A loss likely puts them literally on the cutline.  That's the tipping point.

California is on the outside for now, and probably needs to beat Colorado.  If they do that, absorbing a loss to Arizona doesn't hurt.

We'll revisit Utah if they beat Arizona.  I don't see enough there.  Them and Washington are NIT locks.  Based on resume, Oregon St is a bubble NIT team, but as the 10th team in the Pac-12, it's too crowded; they'll have to settle for the CBI.

Big 12 conference tournament

This is part 25 of a 32-part series covering each conference and conference tournament.  These previews are meant to provide every bracketologist with the information they need to make informed projections about the teams of the conference.

The standings:
Kansas 14-4
Oklahoma 12-6
Texas 11-7
Iowa St 11-7
Kansas St 10-8
West Virginia 9-9
Baylor 9-9
Oklahoma St 8-10
Texas Tech 6-12
TCU 9-21

Tournament format:
Kansas City is your host from March 12-15.  This is your standard bracket setup.

The matchups:
8) Oklahoma St (20-11) vs. 9) Texas Tech (14-17)
7) Baylor (21-10) vs. 10) TCU (9-21)

4) Iowa St (23-7) vs. 5) Kansas St (20-11)
1) Kansas (23-8) vs. 8/9 winner
2) Oklahoma (23-8) vs. 7/10 winner
3) Texas (22-9) vs. 6) West Virginia (17-14)

The stakes:
Zero bubble stakes (or close to it).  The drama will be around jockeying for seed position.

Kansas has probably slipped too far to have a chance at the 1 line, but they have the toughest schedule in 20 years in tow.  Not impossible the committee gives them a 1 seed, with some help elsewhere.  More concerning is that without Embid, they could drop to a 3 seed without winning this tournament.  Stay tuned.

Iowa St has the next best profile, but I have Oklahoma and Texas as 5 seeds.  Those 3 will cluster around the 3-6 lines, and where they end up might be a direct product of how they do in this tournament.  They each have plenty of signature wins and just enough losses to prevent them reaching the 2 line.

Kansas St, Oklahoma St, and Baylor have incentive.  Win to the finals and you may get to the 6 or 7 line.  Flame out early and end up a 10 or so.  However, if they lose in the quarters, they're looking at that 8/9 game.

West Virginia is the only bubble team.  They have Texas and then Oklahoma/Baylor.  They need to win both, and get help elsewhere.  Not likely to get it.

So 7 NCAA teams, 1 NIT team, 2 no postseason teams.  Solvent.  Still, this tournament will have large impacts on the S-Curve.

Big 10 conference tournament

This is part 24 of a 32-part series covering each conference and conference tournament.  These previews are meant to provide every bracketologist with the information they need to make informed projections about the teams of the conference.

The standings:
Michigan 15-3
Wisconsin 12-6
Michigan St 12-6
Nebraska 11-7
Ohio St 10-8
Iowa 9-9
Minnesota 8-10
Indiana 7-11
Illinois 7-11
Penn St 6-12
Northwestern 6-12
Purdue 5-13

Tournament format:
Indianapolis is your neutral site hosts.  This shindig runs from March 13-16, with the championship final ending a half hour before the brackets are out.  Can we please force the B1G to do something about this, please?  This is annoying.

The matchups:
8) Indiana (17-14) vs. 9) Illinois (18-13)
5) Ohio St (23-8) vs. 12) Purdue (15-16)
7) Minnesota (19-12) vs. 10) Penn St (15-16)
6) Iowa (20-11) vs. 11) Northwestern (13-18)

1) Michigan (23-7) vs. 8/9 winner
4) Nebraska (19-11) vs. 5/12 winner
2) Wisconsin (25-6) vs. 7/10 winner
3) Michigan St (23-8) vs. 6/11 winner

The stakes:
Wisconsin is plenty alive for a 1 seed.  So is Michigan.  I do think both would require this title plus a little bit of help, but it's out there.  The scenarios are in play.  Wisconsin still has the #2 SoS and wins of Florida, @Virginia, @Michigan in their hip pocket.  Michigan's wins are a little less valuable, but note the road wins at Wisky, OSU, and Michigan St.  Committees love that sort of thing.

Michigan St is a weird team to try and seed.  After having them as a 2 for the longest time, I'm thinking of making them a 5 without a title here.  There's plenty of depth and quality, but maybe not the high-end results you'd expect from them.  Them and Ohio State will be neck-and-neck in the S-Curve.

Is Iowa in danger?  The record slipped and the RPI is hovering around 50.  They have 4 wins over probably tourney teams, which would suggest they're in, but not all the way in.  I think they'll be fine, but just don't lose to Northwestern and make us look.

Nebraska!  Just the 3 signature B1G wins to prop up the resume, so they're not as safe as everyone assumes.  The good news is they're probably not absorbing a bad loss.  The bad news is the first game will likely be OSU.  I'd much like to see them get that to feel safe.  Minnesota doesn't have such luxuries.  They need a pair of wins probably, which would mean a signature win over Wisconsin.

Illinois/Indiana is a cute little game.  Could be a NIT elimination game, the way automatic bids to the NIT are getting handed out.  Loser could go to the CBI.  Actually, any of the bottom 5 teams could wind up there if they wanted them.