NCAA Tournament Bracket – Post Super Bowl Edition

With football season over, the larger sports world now joins the diehards as college basketball season counts down to March Madness. I’ll speak at more length throughout the week, but kudos to Miami (beat Duke), Notre Dame (beat Marquette), Arizona (swept Cal/Stanford), and Wyoming (beat UNLV) for impressive weekends that propelled them either into the bracket or at least into consideration. Below is my current projected s-curve and a poll for your consideration.

1	Ohio St.	Kentucky		Syracuse	North Carolina
2	Duke	Kansas		Baylor	Missouri
3	Michigan St.	Florida		Georgetown	Marquette
4	Nevada Las Vegas	Creighton		Wisconsin	Florida St.
5	Indiana	St. Mary’s		Michigan	Wichita St.
6	New Mexico	Iowa St.		Louisville	Virginia
7	San Diego St.	Southern Mississippi		Murray St.	St. Louis
8	Connecticut	Vanderbilt		Temple	Alabama
9	California	Gonzaga		West Virginia	Notre Dame
10	Harvard	Kansas St.		Mississippi St.	Memphis
11	Miami FL	Brigham Young		Texas	Illinois
12	Middle Tennessee	Arizona		Purdue	Long Beach St.
13	NCSU/Minnesota	Seton Hall/Washington		Iona	Belmont
14	Akron	Virginia Commonwealth		Cleveland St.	Oral Roberts
15	Davidson	Wagner		Nevada	Bucknell
16	NC Asheville	Stony Brook		Weber St.	Texas Arlington
	Norfolk St.	Mississippi Valley St.
	Next Four	Second Four Out		Bubble Fringe
	Xavier	Northwestern		South Dakota St.
	Cincinnati	Saint Joseph’s		Pittsburgh
	Arkansas	Colorado		Stanford
	Wyoming	Drexel		La Salle

 In addition, see the top 90 teams still in contention for the tournament’s at-large bids. The cut line for inclusion is currently between Washington and Xavier.

One thing I’ve learned about these rankings is that since they include projections for all teams, mid-major and low-major teams that are expected to take care of business anyways have more trouble moving higher in the rankings than do major conference teams. As such, the current ratings for a Cleveland St or Middle Tennessee for instance, are near their peak currently. While they could potentially move a little higher by winning convincingly each game, continued winning will mostly maintain each team’s current rating, while a loss will severely impact each team’s chances. This can be seen by how far Nevada dropped after a single home loss from my last update to today. Thus, a few of these teams may look a little better today than they would look after a bad loss in a conference tournament for instance, which is something to keep in mind going forward.

1	Ohio St.	0.00		49	Cleveland St.	78.36
2	Kentucky	0.11		50	North Carolina St.	80.45
3	Syracuse	1.71		51	Minnesota	80.54
4	North Carolina	5.45		52	Seton Hall	80.68
5	Missouri	5.65		53	Washington	81.46
6	Baylor	6.03		54	Xavier	83.38
7	Kansas	6.46		55	Cincinnati	85.12
8	Duke	10.54		56	Iona	86.29
9	Michigan St.	10.57		57	Arkansas	86.91
10	Florida	14.18		58	Wyoming	87.55
11	Georgetown	15.61		59	Northwestern	87.56
12	Marquette	24.05		60	Virginia Commonwealth	88.23
13	Florida St.	24.18		61	Saint Joseph’s	89.39
14	Wisconsin	24.93		62	Oral Roberts	90.59
15	Creighton	28.27		63	Colorado	91.13
16	Nevada Las Vegas	28.55		64	Akron	91.14
17	Indiana	29.54		65	Drexel	91.71
18	St. Mary’s	32.48		66	Belmont	91.94
19	Michigan	35.18		67	South Dakota St.	93.58
20	Wichita St.	36.72		68	Pittsburgh	94.76
21	Virginia	37.82		69	Stanford	95.05
22	Louisville	39.02		70	La Salle	95.44
23	Iowa St.	42.60		71	Colorado St.	98.12
24	New Mexico	44.40		72	UCLA	98.48
25	San Diego St.	46.02		73	Northern Iowa	99.17
26	Southern Mississippi	46.42		74	Missouri St.	99.21
27	Murray St.	47.99		75	Marshall	99.42
28	St. Louis	48.95		76	Mississippi	100.18
29	Alabama	49.46		77	Massachusetts	100.69
30	Temple	49.80		78	Louisiana St.	101.50
31	Vanderbilt	50.19		79	Central Florida	102.88
32	Connecticut	51.36		80	Virginia Tech	104.74
33	California	51.50		81	Nevada	104.76
34	Gonzaga	52.54		82	Oklahoma	105.59
35	West Virginia	52.72		83	Davidson	107.80
36	Notre Dame	53.84		84	Dayton	108.39
37	Memphis	53.95		85	Oregon	110.22
38	Mississippi St.	54.14		86	St. Bonaventure	110.65
39	Kansas St.	57.52		87	South Florida	110.96
40	Harvard	57.65		88	New Mexico St.	111.96
41	Miami FL	66.13		89	Buffalo	112.20
42	Brigham Young	68.94		90	Ohio	112.49
43	Texas	70.37
44	Illinois	71.17
45	Long Beach St.	72.49
46	Purdue	75.73
47	Arizona	76.03
48	Middle Tennessee	78.28

The following chart breaks out the chances at making the tournament field by conference, both in terms of how many teams are currently in the bracket and how many teams are projected to get there.

	Current	Projected	Lock	Proj. In	Bubble In	Bubble Out	In Contention
B10	8	7	4	1	3	1	9
BE	8	8	3	4	1	3	11
SEC	5	5	2	3	-	3	8
B12	6	6	3	2	1	1	7
ACC	6	5	3	1	2	1	7
P12	3	2	-	1	2	4	7
A10	2	3	-	2	-	6	8
MWC	3	3	1	2	-	2	5
MVC	2	2	1	1	-	2	4
CUSA	2	2	-	2	-	2	4
WCC	3	3	-	2	1	-	3
WAC	-	-	-	-	-	2	2
SunBelt	1	1	-	-	1	-	1
MAC	-	-	-	-	-	2	2
CAA	-	-	-	-	-	2	2
Ivy	1	1	-	1	-	-	1
OVC	1	1	-	1	-	-	1
MAAC	-	-	-	-	-	1	1
ASun	-	-	-	-	-	1	1
Summit	-	-	-	-	-	2	2
Horizon	1	-	-	-	1	-	1
BW	1	1	-	-	1	-	1
Lost Bids		2					-
Auto Bids	15	16	16				18
	68	68	33	23	13	35	106

~ by gremazares on February 6, 2012.