Monday, January 4, 2016

1/4 BRACKET

There's a lot going on here, so read after the bracket.

MIDWEST
@Oklahoma City
1) Oklahoma (12-0) vs. 16) Hampton (5-7)/Wagner (6-5)
8) California (12-3) vs. 9) Pittsburgh (11-1)
@Spokane
4) Louisville (12-2) vs. 13) Northeastern (9-5)
5) Dayton (11-2) vs. 12) Alabama (9-3)
@Providence
3) Duke (12-2) vs. 14) Stony Brook (7-4)
6) Indiana (12-3) vs. 11) Texas (8-5)
@Brooklyn
2) Villanova (12-2) vs. 15) Idaho (8-5)
7) George Washington (12-2) vs. 10) Valparaiso (9-3)

EAST
@Raleigh
1) Virginia (12-1) vs. 16) Army (9-4)
8) Monmouth (9-4) vs. 9) UT-Arlington (10-2)
@Spokane
4) Purdue (13-2) vs. 13) Chattanooga (10-2)
5) West Virginia (12-1) vs. 12) St Joseph's (11-2)
@Des Moines
3) Iowa St (11-2) vs. 14) Kent St (8-4)
6) Oregon (10-3) vs. 11) Arkansas-Little Rock (10-1)/Notre Dame (9-4)
@Des Moines
2) Xavier (13-1) vs. 15) Tennessee Tech (8-5)
7) South Carolina (12-0) vs. 10) Arizona St (10-4)

WEST
@St Louis
1) Kansas (11-1) vs. 16) Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (7-3)
8) Gonzaga (11-3) vs. 9) Colorado (11-3)
@Denver
4) Miami (12-1) vs. 13) Louisiana Tech (10-2)
5) Texas A&M (11-2) vs. 12) Oregon St (9-2)
@Brooklyn
3) Providence (14-1) vs. 14) Yale (7-5)
6) USC (12-3) vs. 11) Syracuse (10-5)/Baylor (9-3)
@Providence
2) Maryland (13-1) vs. 15) High Point (8-4)
7) Seton Hall (12-2) vs. 10) Florida (9-4)

SOUTH
@St Louis
1) Michigan St (14-1) vs. 16) Cal St-Bakersfield (7-5)/Southern (5-6)
8) UConn (10-3) vs. 9) Wichita St (7-5)
@Denver
4) Arizona (13-1) vs. 13) San Diego St (7-6)
5) Iowa (11-3) vs. 12) South Dakota St (11-3)
@Oklahoma City
3) Kentucky (11-2) vs. 14) UC-Irvine (9-5)
6) Butler (11-3) vs. 11) Cincinnati (11-4)
@Raleigh
2) North Carolina (13-2) vs. 15) North Florida (8-6)
7) Utah (10-4) vs. 10) Michigan (11-3)


1) Right now, the Spokane and Denver sites will take the 4 lowest protected seeds (all 4 seeds).  There is truly an east coast bias in the brackets this year.  No west-coast team has higher than a 4 seed.  This means it's more critical than ever for the east coast teams contending for a top-3 seed to get as high as possible to avoid a cross-country trip.
2) The chain reaction to all this is that a lot of teams are going to have to take a long road trip.  The 4-5-12-13 seeds are just going to have to travel a bunch, there's no way around it.
3) To further this thought, the play-in game winners...aren't traveling across the country.  Those games get a bump to the 11 line in this bracket, and the committee will have to get creative if this situation stays as is.
4) The Pac-12 is an interesting conference right now.  Highest seed is a 4 seed in Arizona, but they have 8 teams in this bracket.  A lot of them are middling seeds, and a lot of them are traveling a bunch.

Break it down!:
Pac-12 8
ACC 8
Big 12 6
B1G 6
SEC 5
Big East 5
A-10 3
AAC 2
Sun Belt 2
MVC, MWC, WCC 1

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