Monday, November 10, 2014

Preseason bracket

Find my bracketed field of 68 below.  My notes are below:

1) Several procedures, almost all centered around the play-in games:
a) Northern Iowa from 10 to 11, BYU from 11 to 10 - this accomodates BYU's no-Sunday rule
b) Xavier from 11 to 12, Illinois from 13 to 11, St John's from 12 to 11, Notre Dame from 12 to 13.  All of these happen because of Dayton.  One of the play-in winners will go Tuesday in Dayton to Thursday in Jacksonville.  However, if you play Wednesday, your Friday sites are Charlotte/Columbus/Omaha/Seattle.  Charlotte hosts a 1 and 2 seed, Columbus hosts a 1 and 2 seed, Omaha hosts a 1 and 2 seed.  This means no seed slot between 11 and 14 are available for a play-in game winner.  Therefore, Illinois gets a massive, massive 2 line move and St John's a 1 line move, but the equalizer is they have to travel to Seattle.  Illinois gets 2 instead of 1 because Notre Dame's conference affiliation gets in the way of other pairings.  Xavier bumps down to accomodate this madness.
c) One executive move - Murray St from 13 to 14, UC Irvine from 14 to 13 to accomodate obviously easier travel.

2) Wisconsin as a 1 seed, I have possibly playing Cincinnati in Columbus in round 2.  Part of this is to highlight the arcane rules the NCAA has about geography.  The other part is having 2 B1G teams on the 8 line and being stuck with that situation.

3) As a whole, I tried to replicate the NCAA's geographic rules.  If you're the top team within a seed line, I find the optimal spot for you, and work on from there.  In the current bracket, this harms SMU, who gets Gonzaga in the round of 32 in Seattle.

4) The ACC was tricky.  They have 4 of my top 12 teams, and by rule, must be in 4 different brackets.  Therefore, Louisville draws the west regional, and the ripple effect also hurt a couple other geographic alignments.  Texas doesn't get the South regional because of Kansas as well.  I wasn't able to put a couple other teams in optimal regional location because of the ACC.

SOUTH
@Omaha
1) Kansas vs. 16) FGCU/Arkansas-Pine Bluff
8) Ohio St vs. 9) Memphis
@Portland
4) San Diego St vs. 13) UC Irvine
5) Iowa vs. 12) UTEP
@Pittsburgh
3) Villanova vs. 14) Murray St
6) Syracuse vs. 11) Northern Iowa
@Charlotte
2) North Carolina vs. 15) Coastal Carolina
7) Oklahoma vs. 10) Louisiana Tech

WEST
@Portland
1) Arizona vs. 16) Weber St
8) Minnesota vs. 9) UNLV
@Seattle
4) SMU vs. 13) New Mexico St
5) Gonzaga vs. 12) Green Bay
@Pittsburgh
3) Louisville vs. 14) American
6) Colorado vs. 11) George Washington
@Omaha
2) Wichita St vs. 15) IPFW
7) Kansas St vs. 10) BYU

EAST
@Charlotte
1) Duke vs. 16) Towson
8) Dayton vs. 9) Harvard
@Jacksonville
4) Florida vs. 13) Iona
5) Georgetown vs. 12) Akron
@Louisville
3) Texas vs. 14) Stephen F Austin
6) Michigan vs. 11) Utah
@Columbus
2) Michigan St vs. 15) North Carolina Central
7) UConn vs. 10) LSU

MIDWEST
@Columbus
1) Wisconsin vs. 16) Hartford/Robert Morris
8) Cincinnati vs. 9) Pittsburgh
@Seattle
4) Iowa St vs. 13) Notre Dame/Toledo
5) Nebraska vs. 12) Xavier
@Jacksonville
3) Virginia vs. 14) Georgia St
6) UCLA vs. 11) Illinois/St John's
@Louisville
2) Kentucky vs. 15) Wofford
7) VCU vs. 10) Stanford

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