The anti-Purdue and Illinois

I updated my bracket prediction here below. As you will see, my bracket likes Houston, Purdue, and North Carolina more than others.

1 seeds:
Auburn
Alabama
Duke
Houston

2 seeds:
Florida
Tennessee
Iowa State
Purdue

3 seeds:
Michigan State
Kentucky
Texas A&M
Wisconsin

4 seeds:
Kansas
Michigan
St. John's
Arizona

5 seeds:
Marquette
Texas Tech
Miss State
Clemson

6 seeds:
Oregon
Louisville (who I have A&M playing in the second round)
Ole Miss
Missouri

7 seeds:
Illinois
Maryland
Baylor
Saint Mary's

8 seeds:
Creighton
Gonzaga
UCLA
Memphis

9 seeds:
UConn
BYU
West Virginia
Utah State

10 seeds:
Ohio State
New Mexico
North Carolina
Nebraska

11 seeds:
Vanderbilt
VCU

Play Ins:
Georgia
Oklahoma
Arkansas
Indiana

OP Updated through Sunday night

Locked Up: None
Eliminated: None - every team from 76 down would be eliminated with 1 more loss.

Moving Up: Indiana
Moving Down: Purdue, Ohio State

I still think you are leaning way too hard on predictives, You consistently have Kansas 6-10 spots too high.

Kansas was 15 by the committee 8 days ago. Since then they have lost to Utah, and got beaten by 34 to BYU in addition to beating Oklahoma State....and you have them at 13???

The committee tipped their hand that they while they are still important they are leaning way harder on WAB and other resume metrics this year. Kansas is 28 in WAB - that is behind Utah State by the way who you have as the last 9 seed.(they are a solid 8).

This is updated today? And you have Purdue still as a 2 seed??? They are a low end 4 at best....

I agree on what you are saying. No disagreements at all. I just haven't really bought in on the WAB and them weighting it as much as they are saying. I have WAB in my model, just not as heavily weighted as your model.

Also… just realizing you have Georgia in over Texas….given how hard you lean on the quality metrics for whatever your formula is… what is that based on?

OP updated.

A pretty quiet Monday, UNC inches closer, Houston beating Tech and Michigan beating Nebraska leads to a few tweaks in positioning but doesn't change much.

Really appreciate your work in updating this.

Looking forward to the major update Saturday night after our Aggies BTHO Vandy at Reed tomorrow and then shock the Gators at their home court this weekend!

Beating Florida at Florida would definitely be a rare big move this time of year.

bobinator said:

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Beating Florida at Florida would definitely be a rare big move this time of year.

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My guess is that we will be somewhere around a +8 point dog at Florida.

At least.

Florida has basically blasted everyone they've played at home except Missouri. Vandy is the only other team that even stayed within 20.

Just keeping that game close would go along way towards solidifying our numbers.

Yeah, I think that would be the starting line.

They have won every game except two by 20 points. Lost to Missouri early in the conference season by 1 and Vandy got within 11.

And they should have Condon back too.

I think it will be about +13.5

Cue the "you my boy blue!" Gifs. Georgia takes down Florida!

Cincinnati making it interesting taking down Baylor.

OP Updated through Tuesday night

Locked Up: Louisville
Eliminated: Pitt, Minnesota, Iowa, LSU

Moving Up: Georgia
Moving Down: Iowa State

By the way - 2 good games still going but i'm headed to bed....


New Mexico/San Diego State....winner should be feeling in great shape, if SDSU loses they drop to the last 4 in.

Santa Clara/ Gonzaga - Santa Clara eliminated with a loss....Gonzaga would drop very near to Last 4 in territory by picking up their 9th loss to fall to 4th place in the WCC, typically a 2 bid league.

A couple of Wednesday morning updates -

Gonzaga had a rough 1st half but comes back to blow out Santa Clara. That greatly clears up the WCC picture as a 2 bid league. Gonzaga with just one regular season game left (vs. San Francisco) reaches lock status as it will not be possible for them to fall far enough to get left out.

Santa Clara is eliminated.

Minor adjustments based on SDSU beating New Mexico, moving SDSU to a 9 and Baylor to a 10.

Georgia numbers came in with a much higher bounce than I anticipated, they are clearly in the field as of right now, which bounces Texas out.

ColleyvilleAg06 said:

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Georgia numbers came in with a much higher bounce than I anticipated, they are clearly in the field as of right now, which bounces Texas out.

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It is like I saw through the matrix...

No, turns out the WAB numbers I pulled Sunday night were all out of whack. When I ran it Monday morning, it was much cleaner.

Yeah I thought you might be undershooting Georgia last night. That was an absolutely massive win for them. Could have been truly massive if they hadn't blown that lead.

I am surprised other respected bracketologists didn't lock in Gonzaga last night. Their resume numbers are still dicey but with only 1 game left…a quad 1 game, and quality numbers around #10 in the country…can't see any scenario where they drop below a 10 seed.

I think it's because you're throwing out their conference tournament. If they lose to San Francisco and then lose again to someone who isn't St. Mary's they're going to be right on the edge and their conference tournament is much earlier than the major conference tournaments and more likely to matter.

I agree they're probably still in either way, but I can see why people aren't quite ready to lock them in.

Until proven otherwise, I assume conference tournaments don't matter unless you win it.

So the only way I see them in trouble is if there are a bunch of bid thieves.

The WCC tournament format will provide good insulation against taking a bad loss. Even if they lose their next 2 games, their net ranking is 10 right now and will be no worse than the high teens on selection Sunday. The best NET to ever miss was Indiana State at 29 last year in an incredibly strong bubble. I don't think they will be anywhere near the conversation even with 2 bad losses.

Lunardi new bracketology today has Georgia still out and 7 spots behind Texas…. You make the call

Georgia resume avg 41, quality 38
Texas resume avg 53, quality 39

To say Tex is maybe a spot or so ahead based on sos factors I can get there but the gap is nuts and is another reminder of how poor he is at this up until selection Sunday.

We're never going to have solid proof though because we don't know what the committee is really thinking going in. I think that's the biggest pitfall in this deal is that we assume the committee's thinking is in-line with the general internet consensus and it might not be. Sometimes it's not even close.

So just because we think a team looks like X seed going into the conference tournament doesn't mean that has any connection in reality to what the committee is thinking.

But in this case the WCC tournament being done on the Monday before selection Sunday means that all that data is already in before the committee even meets the first time. I think that's MUCH more likely to matter than say the SEC Tournament where nobody will play any games that really matter until Friday.

If San Francisco beats Oregon State and then Gonzaga though Gonzaga won't be the 2 seed in the WCC Tournament, San Francisco would. (I'm not sure who wins the tiebreaker if they're tied because they'll have split the season series)

That opens up Gonzaga to a potentially even worse loss.

That said I definitely think you're right, they ultimately won't be all that close, but I can just see the argument for people not quite making them a lock if they think the committee is going to lean much harder into resume metrics than they have in previous years.

I believe the next game for both is against each other. Winner take all?

It might be hometown bias, but I don't think they consider it based on A&M making the semifinals at a minimum in the conference tournament and it not effecting the seeding at all.

I think Texas absolutely has to have that game, but Georgia doesn't.

But also depends on what Texas does tonight, I'm not convinced they won't get blown off the court by Arkansas.

I think the difference there is that our data was bad when the committee started meeting.

I do think it's very hard to make big moves once the conference tournaments start. Especially if those moves don't happen until Friday or Saturday likes ours did. Those were huge swings in our data in like 48 hours. You need to already be in the discussion when they start the process.

But in Gonzaga's case they're going to be completely done with their conference tournament two days before the committee even gets together. Their data's not going to change. I think that's the difference.

Defense fell apart in the second half. Fouled way too much before we started to hack-a-shaq. Needed to keep this game in the 60s. Guessing we will drop to a 4 seed after that.

Free fall initiated.

From maybe a 2 to hopefully a 5.

Here is my updated bracket as it stands now: In parenthesis (Q1 wins / Q2 wins / Q3 losses / Q4 losses)

1 seeds
Auburn (13 / 7 / 0 / 0)
Houston (5 / 7 / 0 / 0)
Duke (8 / 2 / 0 / 0)
Alabama (10 / 7 / 0 / 0)

2 seeds
Tennessee (8 / 6 / 0 / 0)
Florida (5 / 8 / 0 / 0)
Michigan State (7 / 5 / 0 / 0)
Wisconsin (1 / 11 / 0 / 0)

3 seeds
Kentucky (9 / 1 / 0 / 0)
Arizona (4 / 5 / 0 / 0)
St. John's (5 / 3 / 0 / 0)
Iowa State (3 / 6 / 2 / 0)

4 seeds
Purdue (4 / 8 / 1 / 0)
Michigan (7 / 4 / 0 / 0)
Texas Tech (2 / 6 / 1 / 0)
Texas A&M (6 / 7 / 0 / 0)

5 seeds
Kansas (5 / 3 / 1 / 0)
Clemson (5 / 4 / 0 / 1)
Louisville (5 / 4 / 1 / 0)
Missouri (6 / 4 / 0 / 0)

6 seeds
Marquette (7 / 0 / 0 / 0)
Oregon (5 / 6 / 0 / 0)
Mississippi State (7 / 2 / 1 / 0)
Maryland (4 / 3 / 0 / 0)

7 seeds
Illinois (4 / 5 / 1 / 0)
Saint Mary's (3 / 7 / 0 / 0)
Ole Miss (4 / 5 / 0 / 0)
Gonzaga (3 / 3 / 0 / 0)

8 seeds
Creighton (4 / 2 / 0 / 0)
UCLA (7 / 3 / 1 / 0)
BYU (3 / 4 / 2 / 0)
Baylor (2 / 3 / 1 / 0)

9 seeds
Memphis (5 / 5 / 2 / 0)
UConn (3 / 4 / 1 / 1)
West Virginia (4 / 2 / 1 / 0)
Vanderbilt (4 / 2 / 0 / 0)

10 seeds
Ohio State (2 / 4 / 2 / 0)
Georgia (3 / 2 / 0 / 0)
Arkansas (3 / 2 / 0 / 0 )
Utah State (3 / 5 / 0 / 0)

11 seeds
North Carolina (1 / 3 / 0 / 0)
VCU (2 / 4 / 1 / 1)

Last 4 In
New Mexico (4 / 6 / 1 / 1)
San Diego State (4 / 4 / 1 / 0)
Nebraska (2 / 6 / 3 / 0)
SMU (0 / 2 / 1 / 0)

First 4 Out
Indiana (3 / 0 / 0 / 0)
Cincinnati (0 / 6 / 1 / 0)
Texas (4 / 2 / 0 / 0)
Oklahoma (5 / 1 / 2 / 0)

Next 4 Out
Boise State (4 / 2 / 1 / 1)
Xavier (1 / 2 / 0 / 0)
Northwestern (1 / 4 / 3 / 0)
Arizona State (3 / 3 / 3 / 0)