12/26 S-CURVE

The season starts to come into focus.  The tricky thing about December/early January projections is blending predictions with results.  There's still some baked in predictions in this S-Curve; they'll slowly be filtered out by late January.  There's a few teams I'm not giving up on yet ('sup, Izzo), and a few I'm buying in.

If you asked me about the 1 line, I think Kansas and Duke are going to charge into Baylor and Louisville's slots, but for now, they sit on the 2 line.

Things about this S-Curve that is interesting:
1) 4 ACC teams in the top 9.  Are there enough quality wins to go around in the ACC to keep all 4 up there?
2) The Pac-12 is top heavy.  UCLA/USC/Arizona/Oregon are in great shape, everyone else well back.  Are there enough quality wins to go around in that conference?
3) The B1G's highest seed is a 4 right now.  That situation will fix itself, but that might mean some difficulty for the bubble teams in March, with less signature wins to go around.
4) It got real light in mid-major land.  There's a few good teams, but their bad conferences will sink them.  UT-A, Chattanooga, MTSU, Wichita, plenty of names to note, but we need to wait for their RPIs and SoSs to settle before we get crazy about their chances.
5) The SEC is in a little better shape.  A few teams building up solid records, helping to boost the SoS numbers.  I'm not sure they can hang on to all 6 bids I gave them here, but the disaster scenario of 3 or less is out of play for now.

The 1 line:  Villanova (12-0), UCLA (13-0), Baylor (11-0), Louisville (11-1)
The 2 line:  Kansas (11-1), Duke (12-1), Kentucky (10-2), North Carolina (10-2)
The 3 line:  Virginia (10-1), Butler (11-1), Gonzaga (12-0), Xavier (10-2)
The 4 line:  Creighton (12-0), Indiana (10-2), West Virginia (11-1), Purdue (11-2)
The 5 line:  USC (13-0), Wisconsin (11-2), St Mary's (10-1), Arizona (11-2)
The 6 line:  Florida St (12-1), Oregon (10-2), Notre Dame (10-2), Florida (9-3)
The 7 line:  Maryland (11-1), Cincinnati (10-2), Auburn (10-2), Virginia Tech (10-1)
The 8 line:  Pittsburgh (10-2), Seton Hall (10-2), South Carolina (9-2), Miami (9-2)
The 9 line:  Texas A&M (8-3), Oklahoma St (9-2), Dayton (8-3), Arkansas (11-1)
The 10 line:  Michigan (10-3), VCU (9-3), SMU (10-3), Minnesota (12-1)
The 11 line:  Wichita St (9-3), Michigan St (8-5), Temple (9-4), Northwestern (11-2), TCU (10-1), California (9-3)
The 12 line:  Texas-Arlington (8-3), UNC-Wilmington (9-1), Nevada (11-2), Valparaiso (8-3)
The 13 line:  Monmouth (10-2), Middle Tennessee (9-3), IPFW (8-3), Chattanooga (7-3)
The 14 line:  Akron (9-3), Tennessee St (7-3), Yale (6-5), New Mexico St (10-2)
The 15 line:  FGCU (7-5), Eastern Washington (6-5), Vermont (7-5), Winthrop (6-3)
The 16 line:  Texas Southern (4-9), Sam Houston St (5-4), Bucknell (8-5), North Carolina Central (6-5), Long Island (6-6), UC-Irvine (5-9)

Next 4 in:
VCU
SMU
Minnesota
Michigan St

Last 4 in:
Temple
Northwestern
TCU
California

Last 4 out:
Colorado
North Carolina St
Providence
Iowa St

Next 4 out:
Rhode Island
San Diego St
Clemson
Ohio St


Break it down!
ACC 9
Big 10 8
SEC 6
Big East 5
Big 12 5
Pac-12 5
AAC 3
A-10 2
WCC 2