There was a lot of chaos in college basketball this past week, with teams putting themselves in good position (Kansas, Miami, South Florida, Washington, Iowa State, Purdue), falling off the table (California, Middle Tennessee State, Connecticut, George Mason), and in some rare cases, doing both in an eight-day period (Iowa, Illinois). Let’s take a look at the most recent bracket projection:
Scrambling the Top: As has been the case for the last month, Kentucky seems locked in the South and Syracuse in the East — although Kyle brings up an interesting point in that Kentucky is actually closer to St. Louis than Atlanta, so we might see the NCAA put Kentucky there. Either way, those two teams are set. But the next six spots are a huge jumbled mess right now, and it’s hard to say who emerges in what order at this stage. This week, as it was last week, the last two #1 seeds go to Michigan State and Duke, who both have sizable resume advantages. To my mind, Kansas is next in line, so they get the “5th 1 seed” status in the West, opposite Duke. Missouri ranks next, then UNC. Why are the Tar Heels so low? A lack of Top 50 wins — among the fewest in the RPI top 20. Ohio State rounds up the pack in 8th…but Ohio State could still get a 1 seed if they beat Michigan State on the road and then follow that up by getting to the Big Ten title game.
That’s Logistics: Miami snuck back into the bracket with their win versus Florida State, which necessitated a huge shift in a bunch of teams’ bracket placement. Northwestern was a true 11 seed but had to be moved down two seed lines to avoid a Big Ten opponent and ended up in the play-in game — and while that violates some bracketing rules, it does so in order to NOT violate other bracketing rules; namely that the “First Four” games have to be split between Thursday and Friday sites, if not all in Friday sites (for travel purposes). But the big problem here is that the least desirable geographical pods (Portland and Albuquerque) are going to be given to the 4/5 seed pods…which is exactly where the 12 and 13 seed play-in games will end up. So what we may be looking at is the committee artificially moving play-in games up to the 11 seed line…which, frankly, defeats the purpose of having the play-in games in the first place.
Mountain Destitute: It was a rough week for The Mountain in terms of seeding. Going in to last week, the conference had a great chance of landing two protected seeds (UNLV and New Mexico). Now, they might get zero. UNLV still has a chance, but New Mexico probably topped themselves out at a 6 seed with their road losses this past week.
That’s One Solution: One of the nice things about this time of year is the conference tournaments yield upsets, which take away bubble spots, which keeps us from wasting valuable time arguing with ourselves whether Washington deserves that last bid over Colorado State. As of now, I am hoping for three major upsets which turn one-bid leagues into multi-bid leagues — that would clear quite a bit of the chaff off the bottom of the bubble. The conferences with the best chances for this to happen are the Ohio Valley Conference (Murray State looks ready for another loss), the West Coast Conference (can Loyola Marymount or USF string a few victories together?), the Atlantic 10 (which is a mess, but still), and Conference USA.
This Week: The teams with the best chance of improving their seeding are probably Iowa State (at Missouri, vs Baylor), Ohio State (at Northwestern, at Michigan State), Indiana (Michigan State, Purdue), Illinois (Michigan, at Wisconsin), and South Florida (at Louisville, West Virginia).
Last Four In: Miami, Xavier, Texas, Washington
Last Four Out: Colorado State, Arizona, UCF, South Florida
