NCAA Tournament Stuff

Here are my updated tournament projections with seedings.  I’ve got Kentucky (obviously), Villanova, Virginia, and Duke as my top 4.

Conference Breakdown

I’m pretty sure this won’t really happen, but if I was selecting the teams for the bracket, I’d take 7 teams from the Big 12 (Kansas, Iowa State, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Baylor, Texas, and Oklahoma State).  It’s a really good conference.

Also with 7 teams is the Big Ten (Wisconsin, Maryland, Michigan State, Iowa, Purdue, Ohio State, and Indiana).

I’ve got 6 teams each from the Big East (Villanova, Butler, Georgetown, Providence, St. John’s, and Xavier), SEC (Kentucky, Arkansas, LSU, Georgia, Texas A&M, and Ole Miss) and ACC (Virginia, Duke, Notre Dame, Louisville, North Carolina, and NC State).  Though I think the committee is going to have a hard time letting in NC State over Miami, if it let’s either of these teams in at all.

I have the Pac 12 with 5 tournament qualifiers: Arizona, Utah, Oregon, UCLA, and Stanford.  Though Stanford still has quite a bit of work to do in this tournament to be that fifth team.

From the Atlantic 10, I’m taking 3 teams: red hot Davidson, Dayton, and VCU.  Rhode Island is going to be pissed if they get left out, but they don’t have any really good wins.  They are 0-4 against top 50 teams and 0-1 against the top 25.  VCU, however, is 3-3 against the top 50 and 1-2 agains the top 25 including wins over Tennessee, Oregon, Northern Iowa, and Cincinnati.  The Rams haven’t beaten Dayton, Davidson, nor VCU this year.   In fact you have to look really hard to find their best win.  Maybe Richmond? or Nebraska?  It’s really hard to see ANY quality wins on their schedule.

Rounding out the multi-team conferences I have two each from the Mountain West (Boise State and San Diego State), the West Coast (Gonzaga and BYU), and the Missouri Valley (Northern Iowa and Wichita State). Basically everything I read has BYU as a bubble team.  I’m couldn’t disagree with this more.  If they don’t get a bid, I’m going to lose my mind a little bit.  Not only do I have them in, I have them as a 9 seed and ranked 36th.  And don’t just take my word for it, Sagarin has them ranked 34th and Pomeroy has them ranked 29th (that’s one spot AHEAD of Arkansas who is a virtual lock.)  Unfortunately, if you live in the dark ages (like the committee) and you use the RPI, they are ranked 44th, which does put them on the bubble.

Good Weeks

Davidson has now won 8 in a row and this last week they beat VCU and Duquesne to take sole possession of first place in the Atlantic 10.  I’ve got Davidson as an 8 seed right now (I had them as an 11 seed last week), but if they keep winning a 6 or 7 seed could reasonably happen.

NC State won both of it’s games this week over Clemson and the Syracuse Orange Cheaters.  They finish with a record of 19-12 and 10-8 in the ACC.  As long as nothing disastrous happens in their tournament, I think they are in. Last week I had them as a 12 seed, but I’ve moved them up to a 9 seed.  This jump has a lot more to do with teams ahead of them falling (e.g. LSU, Georgia, Oklahoma State, Stanford, Indiana) than them doing something impressive.

Oregon won last Sunday at Stanford in a game that both teams really needed. Add in a win this week against Oregon State and that equals Oregon moving up to a 7 seed from a 9 seed where they were last weekend.

Other teams that moved up at least one seed this week include Iowa State, Oklahoma, Georgetown, Ohio State, Iowa, Providence, Texas, Xavier, San Diego State, and UCLA.

Bad weeks

Stanford, unlike Oregon, did not have a good week.  Last Sunday they lost at home to Oregon and since then have lost two more games.  Since then, they have also lost to Arizona and Arizona State.  Losing to Arizona isn’t that big of a deal, but they absolutely had to have that win over Arizona State.  This all leads to a 3 game losing streak.  It is not a good time to be riding a 3 game losing streak. They are also 2-5 in their last 7 games.  Not a good look if you’re trying to get into the tournament.  Last week I had Stanford as an 8 seed, but I’ve dropped them all the way to 11 and are one of the last 4 in.  I wouldn’t be surprised if the committee leaves them out.

I dropped Oklahoma State down to an 11 seed from a 9 seed.  They beat TCU this week and lost to West Virginia.  Realistically, I don’t see the committee taking a team that is 8-10 in conference and 18-12 overall.  This team is somewhat of an enigma.  On the one hand they beat Kansas once and Baylor twice, but they also lost to TCU and Texas Tech.   I don’t know what the committee will do with that.

LSU got a big win over Arkansas yesterday, but any gain from that win is over shadowed by their home loss to Tennessee on Wednesday.  The Vols are 7-11 in conference and 15-15 overall.  That’s a bad March loss.  I dropped LSU down two seeds to a 10.

Purdue lost to Ohio State and Michigan State this week leaving them at 12-6 in conference and 20-11 overall.  I had Purdue as high as a 6 seed, but I’ve knocked them down to an 8 after back to back losses.

Other teams that fell at least one seed this week included Wichita State, SMU, VCU, Georga, Ole Miss, and Indiana.