NCAA Bracket 2/29 – Indiana/Vandy Jump

A short bracket update today serves the purpose of updating seeding.

Big wins by Indiana over Sparty and Vanderbilt over Florida propelled them to the 3 and 5 lines respectively on an otherwise uneventful Tuesday.

Uneventful enough that UConn and Xavier completely forgot they desperately needed wins to stay in the NCAA picture, continuing ho hum on their trajectory of the past month and a half. That trajectory will take both straight out of the bracket if they’re not careful.

There’s a much larger slate on tap tonight, so I’ll have more tomorrow.

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

The Bzdelik Line 2012 – Leap Day Moral Victory Edition

The Bzdelik Line 2012 – Leap Day Moral Victory Edition.

The Bzdelik Line 2012 – Leap Day Moral Victory Edition

I noted in an article earlier this month that the shear number of excessively bad teams from major conferences has been steadily on the rise for a few years, and that the number of such teams absolutely leaps out this season in particular. While part of the blame over the last 5 years surely lies with a certain ACC head coach that holds the distinction of having coached the worst team of the last decade in not one, but two major conferences, that doesn’t explain the full 11 teams from major conferences, including at least 1 in each of the 6 conferences (for the first time yet if that trend holds up) currently residing outside the top 150. And the 5 outside the top 200. In fact, look at how the number of teams falling outside these thresholds increases over time:

Year	Top 100	Top 150	Top 200
2012	20	11	5
2011	13	5	4
2010	11	5
2009	12	5	1
2008	11	3	1
2007	12	3
2006	14	3
2005	11	3
2004	15	4	1
2003	10	2	1

For those counting, here’s the number of teams outside the top 200:

2003-2010 – 4 teams combined over 8 years: Penn State in 2003 and 2004, Oregon State in 2008, and Indiana in 2009

2011 – 4 teams

2012 – 5 teams

While I wrote about these teams before, I’ll update the status of these teams from a few weeks ago, including whether conference records (including Jeff Bzdelik’s standing records for having the worst team in each of the Big 12 and ACC over the last decade) will fall this year. I’ll do one more update at the end of the season to summarize the final results for these teams.

From best to worst of these conferences, here we go:

Big Ten

Nebraska (153) – Nebraska lost by 28 at Michigan State las week, scoring just 34 points in the process. That’s the same Nebraska team that Illinois allowed to go on a 43-7 run a week before. The Cornhuskers rank 4th in the country in experience, which sets them apart from every other team that has finished outside the top 150. Every one of those teams since Ken Pomeroy started tracking experience in 2007 finished outside the top 200 in experience.

All Time Worst: 2009 Indiana, coming off a scandal under Kelvin Sampson finished 212th in Tom Crean’s first year. This conference record appears safe this season.

Big East

Depaul (169) – Depaul is in year four of their run of finishing outside the top 150. The Blue Demons have been playing their Big East competition tough in recent weeks, taking Louisville to overtime and playing St John’s and Providence to the wire. However, those games all ended the same way, with Depaul trailing at the final buzzer. The young Depaul team (267th in experience) is now on a 9 game losing streak and has lost 14 of their last 15 in Big East play. They’ll have a chance to spoil Seton Hall’s tournament bid in their season finale this weekend.

St John’s (146) – The youngest team in the country, St. John’s freshmen have begun to show their promise in their current 3 game win streak that included wins over UCLA and Notre Dame.

All Time Worst: 2010 Depaul (202). This appears to be safe this season as well unless Depaul completely folds down the stretch.

Big 12

Texas Tech (237) – Texas Tech has put a recent scare into both Texas and Iowa State, taking Texas to overtime and leading in the second half at ISU. Baby steps for a team full of freshmen, but it’s something.

Big 12 Worst: Tie. Colorado 2007 (168 under Ricardo Patten) and Colorado 2009 (168 under Jeff Bzdelik). Texas Tech looks poised to leave these teams in their wake this season.

SEC

Auburn (164) – In year two under head coach Tony Barbee, Auburn has improved from an absolutely dismal season last year. However, unlike most teams on this list, Auburn isn’t trying to rebuild with a young new core of talented but inexperienced underclassmen, ranking 97th in the country in experience. They’ve been trending in the right direction since being ranked 210 on January 11, and would do well to upset rivals Alabama or LSU over the final week as they attempt to rejoin the top 150.

South Carolina (160) – The Gamecocks are going in the opposite direction as Auburn, dropping steadily from 116th on January 10th while amassing a 2-12 SEC record to date. Darren Horn is lucky the baseball and football teams have succeeded in prior years or he may be facing more pressure. This is a team devoid of experience at 313th in the country, and they are the perfect opponent for Mississippi St to face as they attempt to save their season. A win over the Bulldogs would end State’s tournament bid and provide some optimism for the future.

SEC Worst: 2011 LSU was ranked 227th at year end.

ACC

Boston College (253) – This story is very similar to St John’s, except with less talented freshmen and a team that has hit the wall in their last two games, getting blown out by Duke and by fellow ACC bottom feeder Wake Forest by 29 last weekend. They get a chance for redemption as they host fellow bottom feeder Georgia Tech on Wednesday night.

Wake Forest (187) – Like Auburn, Wake Forest has also improved a little bit this season. But like Auburn, not nearly enough. Wake has at least battled better at the end of this season than the season prior, blowing out Boston College to achieve their fourth ACC victory, and making a late surge that startled potential #1 seed Duke before finally succumbing in the final minute 79-71. This bit of fight and maturity is a welcome change for a young team that regularly folded last season, and has had a few of those embarrassing meltdown losses this season including back-to-back shellackings at the hands of Virginia and Clemson early this month. It’s not a win, but when you’ve been this bad, even losses can provide something positive.

Georgia Tech (163) – First year head coach Brian Gregory has struggled with a depleted roster, particularly on the road, where Georgia Tech has been absolutely abysmal this season. They have huge games remaining against BC tonight and Wake on Saturday as they try to avoid a last place ACC finish.

All Time Record: 2011 Wake Forest (251); While Coach Jeff Bzdelik’s Big 12 record may fall this season, his ACC mark is less certain to stand. If it doesn’t fall to BC this season, it may stand for a LONG time.

Pac 12

USC (225) – The Trojans, under coach Kevin O’Neill, have displayed one of the largest disparities in performance between two ends of the floor in NCAA history. On the defensive end, the Trojans have played extremely hard, and for the most part, extremely well. Their adjusted defensive efficiency of 94.7 ranks 66th in the country and 6th in the Pac 12. Their problem is on the offensive end of the court, where they can’t seem to find anyone consistently able to put the ball in the basket, ranking 322nd with an adjusted efficiency of just 88.8. They’re the NCAA equivalent of my Thursday night men’s league team, although a recent look actually has my team scoring more than the Trojans. Somehow this team is trailing the two teams I’ll right about next and sits dead last in the Pac 12.

Arizona State (243) – Herb Sendek is in serious trouble here, as Arizona State is 9-20, and has won just one game by double digits (hilarious) this season. They have a chance to spoil rival Arizona’s tournament bid if they can win at home this week. And saving the worst for last….

Utah (301) – Yes #301. Up from 336 on January 5th. One spot to go and they’re out of the top 300. And three Pac 12 teams (Washington State, Arizona State, and then bubble team Stanford) actually managed to lose to them. Utah is in the strange position of making the transition from the Mountain West conference to a Big 6 conference, doing so under a first year head coach. That almost shouldn’t count. But it does. They are a cautionary tale to teams such as TCU, SMU, and Houston, that will be making the leap to the Big 12 and Big East over the next few seasons. Even so, it takes quite the set of circumstances to be ranked outside the top 300 with the resources a program such as Utah has at its disposal, especially when you consider prior to last season only 4 had finished outside the top 200, with 213 as the worst.

Pac 12 All Time Record: 2008 Oregon State (210); 3 teams will break that mark this season alone. And Utah is set to shatter the major conference mark of 251 set by Wake Forest last year. Congrats to Utah, still on pace to be the worst of the worst major conference teams.

NCAA Bracket 2/28, Conference Tournament Ramifications

As conference tournament season got under way in the Big South last night and begins in earnest in the upcoming days, it’s time to take a look at the high-level impacts these conference tournaments can have on the overall bracket 12 days from now. I’ll start with the bracket and then discuss the a few trends and things to look out for this year.

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

So what impact can the first week of conference tournaments have on the NCAA tournament two weeks later?

1. Lost At-large Bids - The most obvious impact is that teams like Murray St (OVC) are set to make the tournament regardless of whether they win their conference tournament. However, should they fail to win the Ohio Valley Tournament, someone else will receive the OVC automatic bid and make the OVC a two-bid league. This will limit the number of spots available to teams on the bubble. Other conferences where this applies are Conference USA (anyone besides Memphis or Southern Miss), the Atlantic 10 (anyone but Temple or St Louis), WCC (Gonzaga, St Mary’s, BYU), MVC (Wichita St and Creighton). Major conference bubble teams should hope the champions of those conferences are among the teams listed above to avoid the shrinking bubble.

Long Beach State, Iona, Middle Tennessee, Belmont, Oral Roberts, Drexel and VCU are all on the bubble with an outside shot of grabbing an at-large bid (like VCU and UAB last year) should they lose in their conference tournaments. While major conference tournament teams might want these teams to win their tournaments as well, it’s not as clear-cut as the teams definitely getting in from the paragraph above, as I’ll explain below.

2. More favorites winning means a stronger bottom of the bracket – This one makes sense. The better teams from the bottom conferences are, the more fight they’ll put up against the top seeds in the tournament. These conference leaders appear to be especially strong this season, as all but 4 conference leaders are in the top 100 of the RPI (and most in the Kenpom rankings), and just 12 of 31 don’t hit the top 50 of either ranking (with Akron and Nevada very close). That’s an incredibly low number at this point in the season and tells us that there may be a couple 16 seeds in the top 100 of one or the other, and a couple of 14 seeds may crack the top 50 of one of the two rankings. If that holds up it would be the strongest set of 16 seeds since I started following the tournament.

3. So does quality depth in these conferences -Additionally, a good number of those conferences also have a second or third team nearly as good as the first that can keep up the strength of the conference’s bid if they win their tournaments instead of the favorite. For instance, South Dakota St., while less publicised, is nearly as strong as Oral Roberts this season and wouldn’t have a significantly worse profile. Top 100 pairs exist in many conferences: Cleveland State with Valpo in the Horizon, Montana with Weber State in the Big Sky, Lehigh with Bucknell in the Patriot, 3 additional MAC East teams not named Akron, New Mexico State with Nevada in the WAC, 4 teams in the CAA, 4 in the Ivy, Long Island along with Wagner in the NEC, Loyola MD with Iona in the MAAC, Denver with Middle Tennessee in the SunBelt, and Mercer with Belmont in the Atlantic Sun as well. As long as a completely unexpected lower seed doesn’t win these conferences, the team receiving a bid should be high quality.

4. Marginal protected seed teams mean more chances for upsets -This season has as big a divide in quality between the top 8-9 teams and the next 8-9 teams as any in recent memory. The 1 and 2 seeds may have switched between the two lines but otherwise haven’t changed in 3-4 weeks. That is unheard of at this stage. The top 8 teams are all good enough that even going through a rough patch, as Ohio State is currently, they have won enough games during that time to stay on the 2 line. Part of the reason is a gulf in class between the sets of teams that has prevented teams reaching the 3-4 lines from going on long winning streaks as they all regress towards the middle of their respective conferences. When these teams leave the confines of their home courts, whoever they are, their matchups with 13-14 seeds may be much closer than the average fan expects.

5. The move to 68 teams increased the quality of lower seeds – This may seem a little counterintuitive. Adding more teams should theoretically dilute the bottom of the bracket further, right? Not exactly. The dynamics of a 68 team tournament which include two play-in games at the 16-seed level actually eliminates two of the worst teams before we get to the round of 64. This was one team in a 65 team tournament, and none in the good old days of 64.

Here’s an example: You have 13 multi-bid leagues, and 18 single bid leagues in a given season, with those 18 teams theoretically being the 18 lowest seeded in the field. With just 64 teams in the tournament, those teams make up 4 16s, 4 15s, 4 14s, 4 13s and the last two 12s.

At 68 teams, with two play-in games consisting of 16 seeds as well as 2 additional 16s in the other regions, those same 18 teams consist of 6 16s, and 4 each of 13-15 seeds. Two of the prior 12s are now 13s, two of the prior 13s are 14s, 14 are now 15, and two 15s are now 16 seeds. Thus, a couple three seeds are now playing what could have been a 13 in a prior draw that have now fallen to the 14 line. This may not seem like a big deal, but especially in a year where the bottom of the draw is particularly strong, this can mean a vastly different quality of opponent and potentially an additional upset or two.

This is the environment going forward, and will have a more profound effect in some years than others, specifically those where more conference favorites hold serve in their conference tournaments and/or when that group is particularly strong. With parity increasing across college basketball, it’s likely that those seasons will occur more and more often going forward.

What does all of this mean to major conference teams? Bubble teams need at-large competition from these conferences to win their conferences, and for bubble competition to either win their tournament’s automatic bid or lose ugly early. The 3-6 seeds want upsets in as many of these tournaments as possible to lower the chances of getting upset by a strong crop of mid-majors in the early rounds of the NCAA tournament, but they better be careful what they wish for, as they could land a hot team of almost equal ability that can also spring the upset lest they be underestimated.

Pack your bags, you’re heading to……..NCAA Bracket 2/27

In this look at the NCAA tournament bracketing process, we view the top teams in terms of their proximity to early round sites and Regional sites to see who is likely to end up playing in each location. I’ll start with the bracket and then discuss the basics of bracketing to a geographic location, discussing which teams are in the mix and who is likely headed where.

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

First, the basics:

1. There are 8 sites for the round of 64 and 32. 4 of those sites play their games on Friday and Sunday, while 4 play on Thursday and Saturday.

2. Each of those sites will be assigned two pods of 4 teams. A pod consists of four teams that are in line to play each other in round 1 and round 2 (i.e. 1vs16 and 8vs9 would be a pod). The winners within a pod in the round of 64 play each other in the round of 32 so that one team from each pod will make the second weekend.

3. The two pods at a site do not have to be in the same regional.

4. The pods are generally determined by placing the top seeds as close to their campus as possible. The committee also tries to limit travel for other teams as it places them on seed lines without conferring an unfair home court advantage on the lower seeds over the better seeds.

5. One notable exception to this is that a team may not play on its home court (or as the site “host”) unless it’s the site of the Final Four. This eliminates Ohio State, Louisville, and New Mexico from playing in Columbus, Louisville, and Albuquerque respectively.

6. Finally, BYU cannot play on Sundays and must be in a Thursday/Saturday pod and regional.

First let’s look at the 8 first and second round sites: Albuquerque NM, Columbus OH, Greensboro NC, Louisville, KY, Nashville TN, Omaha NE, Pittsburgh PA, and Portland OR. All distances to sites are provided by Crashing the Dance. It’s easiest to start at the top of the S-curve, as the higher a team is ranked, the more priority the team receives when the Committee selects sites:

Rank	Team	Conf.	Closest	Distance	Other	Distance
1	Kentucky	SEC	Louisville	62
2	Syracuse	BE	Pittsburgh	278
3	Michigan St.	B10	Columbus	212	Pittsburgh	275
4	Kansas	B12	Omaha	163
5	Duke	ACC	Greensboro	66
6	North Carolina	ACC	Greensboro	66
7	Ohio St.	B10	Pittsburgh	145	Louisville	198
8	Missouri	B12	Omaha	260	Nashville	356
9	Marquette	BE	Columbus	331	Louisville
10	Baylor	B12	Albuquerque	591
11	Georgetown	BE	Pittsburgh	204	Columbus	322
12	Wisconsin	B10	Omaha	359	Louisville
13	Wichita St.	MVC	Omaha	256	Albuquerque	542
14	Michigan	B10	Columbus	157	Pittsburgh	201
15	Florida	SEC	Nashville	513
16	Indiana	B10	Louisville	82	Nashville	209
17	Louisville	BE	Nashville	152	Columbus	198
18	Nevada Las Vegas	MWC	Albuquerque	486	Portland	701
19	Temple	A10	Pittsburgh	266	Columbus	404
20	Florida St.	ACC	Nashville	419

The first 6 teams are likely to get their top choice due to their relative standing and close proximity to some of the sites. That closes out Greensboro with Duke and Carolina, and puts one team each in Omaha, Columbus, Pittsburgh, and Louisville. These appear to be the only 6 spots decided at this point. Baylor will likely have a protected seed in Albuquerque due to being the closest as well barring a collapse down the stretch.

The vast majority of the teams from the Big Ten (Ohio St, Indiana, Wisconsin, Michigan), Big 12 (Missouri), Big East (Georgetown and Marquette), and Wichita State are all closer to those four sites than to any of the remaining sites. With just four sites for those 8 teams, 4 can go to those sites while the remainder will have to settle for Nashville, Albuquerque or Portland.

Four of the schools listed above were good in the wrong year and have no site within 400 miles, and two of the sites, Albuquerque and Portland, OR have no teams within 500 miles. Portland in particular has UNLV (likely to be a 5 or 6 seed and not get its own pod) 700 miles away and no one else within 1000 miles. Those are the sites for leftover 4 seeds, and when the bracket comes out the first places I’ll be looking for upsets.

Where it gets interesting beyond this is in placing the remaining teams. While a team such as Ohio St theoretically has priority over a team below them such as Georgetown for Pittsburgh, the committee has shown a precedent of moving Ohio State to somewhere almost as close to allow a team such as Georgetown to remain close to home. Thus, I shift OSU to Louisville (198 miles from home rather than 145 to Pittsburgh), allowing Georgetown to join Syracuse in Pittsburgh should they maintain a 3 seed. The higher seeded of Missouri and Wichita State will join Kansas in Omaha, with the other likely relegated to Albuquerque along with Baylor.

Marquette, Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan, and Florida currently round out the top 4 seeds and will fill out the final spot in Columbus, two in Nashville, and two in Portland. For now, Marquette gets Columbus, Indiana and Michigan head to Nashville by being closer to Nashville than Wisconsin, and Florida and Wisconsin get shipped out to Portland.

Here’s my best guess as of today, with spots I’m fairly certain about in bold:

ABQ	Col	Gboro	Louisville	Nashville	Omaha	Pittsburgh	Portland
Baylor	Michigan St.	Duke	Kentucky	Indiana	Kansas	Syracuse	Florida
Wichita St.	Marquette	UNC	Ohio St.	Michigan	Missouri	Georgetown	Wisconsin

Regionals

The four regional sites are St Louis, Atlanta, Boston, and Phoenix. Much like they do with the sub-regionals above, the Committee attempts to keep teams as close to home as possible for the sweet 16 and Elite 8. The obvious caviat here is that the top 1-seeds take precedence over other sides. When it gets to the fourth #1 seed, many teams debate whether they’d rather have, say, the #1 seed in Phoenix, far from home, or play much closer to home as a 2-seed in St Louis, Boston, or Atlanta, depending on the team in question. This is especially true when shifting along the same line, as most schools have a stated preference of facing a tougher 1-seed but playing closer to home rather than an easier opponent further away. Take UNC as an example. They appear to be the first or second two-seed at the time being, which would line them up against Kansas or Michigan State, theoretically easier opponenets than Kentucky. However, they would likely rather play in Kentucky in the Elite 8 if it meant playing in Atlanta. Keep that in mind when reading the following and when certain regions seem tougher than others in the final bracket produced by the Committee.

Atlanta – Kentucky will likely grab the Atlanta regional and have Duke or UNC as their two seed in the Southeast.

1 – Kentucky 2 – Duke 3 – Baylor 4 – Indiana

Boston – Syracuse takes the 1 seed, while UNC gets sent up the East coast to face off against the Orange.

1 – Syracuse 2 – UNC 3 – Wisconsin 4 – Michigan

St Louis – Kansas claims the 1 seed and plays close to home, with Ohio State, Marquette, and Wichita State forming Midwest Regional full of midwestern teams.

1- Kansas 2 – Ohio State 3 – Marquette 4 – Wichita State

Phoenix - Finally, the West regional will be comprised of top seeds from the East coast. Michigan State and Missouri could be on a collision course. Also, the Western regional is likely to be the weakest if the committee keeps the top teams on each seed line closest to home. Michigan State, Missouri, Georgetown, and Florida could battle it out for a spot in the final four.

I’ll update this analysis next week as we head into conference tournaments.

NCAA Tournament Bracket – 2/26

A big day of Saturday games posed a number of chances for teams to change their fortunes for better or worse. It also wrapped up the conference schedule for a few conferences that look to get underway as early as Monday February 27th.

At the top of the bracket, the final Border War between Kansas and Missouri (before Missouri heads to the SEC) involved a 19 point Kansas comeback in the second half and a crazy overtime that saw Missouri take the lead with 16 seconds remaining, Kansas take the lead with 2 free throws with 9 seconds remaining, and Missouri failing to get a shot off before the buzzer sounded at a frenzied Phog Allen Fieldhouse. This game pushes Kansas two games clear of Missori in the Big 12 standings, giving them an 8th straight Big 12 title, and pushing them clearly ahead of Mizzou for a potential #1 seed. Meanwhile, Kentucky, Syracuse, Duke, UNC, and Michigan State all won to keep pace in a hotly contested battle between 8 teams for the 4 #1 seeds. Kentucky and Syracuse appear to have the first two wrapped up, while Kansas, Ohio State, Michigan State, Duke and UNC now battle for the other two.

Marquette keeps rolling along, positioning themselves as the top 3 seed by a fair margin, this time with a comback 1-point Friday night victory at West Virginia, prompting Marquette coach Buzz Williams to dance with joy shortly after the game, to the ire of the West Virginia crowd. Baylor, Georgetown, and Wichita State also continued winning games, setting themselves up safely for a 3/4 seed.

Michigan, Florida, Temple, Notre Dame, and New Mexico did not far as well, and the 4-6 seeds remain up for grabs. There is a clear gulf in class between the top 8 or so teams in the country and everyone else. Combine the relative weakness of the 3/4 seeds with the strength of the potential 13-15 seed conference champions if favorites win their conference tournaments, and you have a recipe for a number of first round upsets throughout the bracket. More on this later this week.

Now let’s turn to the bubble. The following 36 teams are competing for the final 12 at-large bids plus 9 automatic bids (ASun, Big West, CAA, Ivy, MAAC, MAC, SunBelt, Summit, and WAC). Those conference leaders are indicated in Italics. In addition, the WCC, Conference USA, Atlantic 10, and espeically the MVC and OVC tournaments could be sources of stolen bids that shrink the bubble further if teams not currently projected to make the tournament end of winning those conference tournaments.  The cutoff line is currently between Miami and Arizona.

38	Brigham Young	72.94
39	Seton Hall	73.30
40	Southern Mississippi	73.75
41	Texas	75.70
42	West Virginia	76.78
43	Long Beach St.	78.17
44	Harvard	78.24
45	Northwestern	78.54
46	Cincinnati	79.73
47	Washington	79.99
48	Drexel	80.13
49	South Florida	82.63
50	Xavier	83.63
51	Virginia Commonwealth	84.61
52	Miami FL	84.66
53	Arizona	86.78
54	Belmont	87.79
55	Middle Tennessee	87.89
56	Mississippi St.	89.23
57	Colorado St.	89.74
58	Iona	89.89
59	Saint Joseph’s	90.18
60	Dayton	91.70
61	Oral Roberts	92.58
62	Oregon	95.68
63	Akron	95.99
64	North Carolina St.	96.37
65	Tennessee	96.74
66	South Dakota St.	96.76
67	Illinois	99.76
68	Minnesota	99.84
69	Nevada	100.52
70	New Mexico St.	100.78
71	Marshall	100.91
72	Central Florida	101.18
73	Louisiana St.	101.78

A number of these teams, and a couple just above them, made life far more difficult than necessary by losing to conference bottom feeders they simply need to beat.

Saint Louis went into the day tied with Temple for the conference lead and in a safe position for inclusion in the tournament and proceeded to lose to 200+ RPI side Rhode Island, sliding them to a 9 seed.

Seton Hall started in a slightly worse position, and then suffered a home loss to in-state rival Rutgers last night, pushing them back on the bubble.

Harvard blew a chance to wrap up the Ivy league crown, suffering a heartbreaking 1 point home loss to Penn that tied the two sides with 2 conference losses and may force them into yet another 1 game playoff for the Ivy league bid, as Harvard seeks only the second bid in school history (and first since 1946).

Mississippi State grew its losing streak to 4 games, getting blown out at Alabama, and now probably needs help just to make the tournament on a squad that surely includes two future NBA players in Arnett Moultrie and Renardo Sidney.

Texas nearly suffered the same fate as some of those above, trailing for most of the afternoon against all-time worst Big 12 squad Texas Tech. However, a late comback and successful battle to a win in overtime kept them on the right side of the bubble for the time being. They will need to win over Oklahoma or at Kansas this week to remain there heading into the Big 12 tournament.

Here is a look at the bracket and conference breakdown.

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

	Current	Proj	Lock/Close	Proj. In	Bubble In	Bubble Out	In Contention
BE	10	9	5	1	4	-	10
B10	7	7	5	1	1	2	9
B12	6	6	3	2	1	-	6
ACC	5	4	3	1	1	1	6
SEC	4	5	3	1	-	3	7
A10	3	3	1	1	1	2	5
MWC	3	3	2	1	-	1	4
WCC	3	3	1	1	1	-	3
P12	2	2	1	-	1	2	4
CUSA	2	2	-	1	1	2	4
MVC	2	2	1	1	-	-	2
CAA	2	1	-	-	2	-	2
Ivy	1	1	-	-	1	-	1
OVC	1	1	1	-	-	-	1
BW	1	1	-	-	1	-	1
Summit	-	-	-	-	-	2	2
WAC	-	-	-	-	-	2	2
SunBelt	-	-	-	-	-	1	1
MAC	-	-	-	-	-	1	1
MAAC	-	-	-	-	-	1	1
ASun	-	-	-	-	-	1	1
Horizon	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Lost Bids		2					-
Auto Bids	16	16	16				16
	68	68	42	11	15	21	89
Note: Conferences listed above with zero projected bids are included in auto bids.

NCAA Tournament Bracket – 2/23

A big night of Wednesday games posed a number of chances for teams to screw up their tournament chances, and a few chances to come up with a big win as well. Per usual, bubble teams for the most part did more to sabotage their chances than to grab a needed big win, and the jumbled nature of the current bubble reflects this. Some suspect teams are going to get into the tournament because we have to come up with 37 at-large bids somehow.

Minnesota let a big chance to get back into the picture slip away as they blew a late lead at home against potential #1 seed Michigan State. They’re not going to make the tournament without a miracle.

South Florida let an early 13 point lead evaporate at #2 Syracuse by allowing a 26-0 run spanning the end of the first half and beginning of the second, letting a marquee win that would almost assuredly have put them in the bracket pass them by. They’ll likely need to win 1-2 more against Cincinnati, @Louisville, or West Virginia down the stretch in order to make the tournament.

Equally important, teams such as Notre Dame and Temple secured important wins that should help them avoid the 8/9 matchups, which is crucial if you want to make the second weekend of the tournament.

29 teams are tightly clustered for the final 16 bids (including the Big West, Sun Belt, and CAA automatic bids), with each of them having more work to do in order to make the tournament, but an open door to walk through should they be able to take care of what they’re supposed to. How many teams avoided harmful losses yesterday? Eye on College Basketball on CBS Sports provides a succinct rundown of yesterday’s activity.

Who will step into the bracket with so many bubble teams seemingly struggling to make their case? Here’s how the bracket has shaken out through Wednesday’s action:

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

Here is the ranking scale that got us there with all remaining teams under consideration, with 18 days of games left . Note that Arizona is the last team in and Xavier the first team out.

1	Kentucky	1.49	100.00%
2	Syracuse	1.96	100.00%
3	Kansas	5.23	100.00%
4	Michigan St.	5.70	100.00%
5	Missouri	6.92	100.00%
6	North Carolina	8.45	100.00%
7	Duke	8.49	100.00%
8	Ohio St.	9.15	100.00%
9	Marquette	17.21	100.00%
10	Michigan	19.74	100.00%
11	Georgetown	19.95	100.00%
12	Baylor	20.05	100.00%
13	Florida	21.97	100.00%
14	Wichita St.	23.48	100.00%
15	Wisconsin	23.92	100.00%
16	Florida St.	28.28	100.00%
17	Louisville	31.44	100.00%
18	Indiana	33.64	100.00%
19	Temple	36.33	99.98%
20	New Mexico	36.47	99.96%
21	Notre Dame	36.82	99.91%
22	Nevada Las Vegas	39.00	99.40%
23	Vanderbilt	46.82	95.98%
24	Murray St.	46.92	95.66%
25	California	48.41	94.28%
26	St. Louis	48.97	93.43%
27	Virginia	51.33	91.42%
28	Gonzaga	52.26	90.29%
29	Creighton	54.39	88.30%
30	Kansas St.	55.87	86.70%
31	San Diego St.	56.17	85.95%
32	Memphis	58.51	83.65%
33	St. Mary’s	61.28	80.89%
34	Seton Hall	65.43	76.80%
35	Connecticut	65.79	75.96%
36	Alabama	66.21	75.05%
37	Harvard	66.55	74.22%
38	Iowa St.	67.81	72.54%
39	Purdue	68.97	70.94%
40	Brigham Young	71.88	67.63%
41	West Virginia	72.06	66.92%
42	Southern Mississippi	73.56	64.91%
43	Texas	76.86	61.02%
44	Long Beach St.	79.73	57.45%
45	Washington	79.82	56.83%
46	Middle Tennessee	82.23	53.68%
47	Miami FL	82.26	53.12%
48	Northwestern	82.73	52.08%
49	Cincinnati	82.84	51.42%
50	Drexel	84.09	49.51%
51	Mississippi St.	84.82	48.15%
52	South Florida	85.02	47.40%
53	Arizona	87.11	44.48%
54	Xavier	87.18	43.87%
55	Colorado St.	88.78	41.48%
56	Virginia Commonwealth	90.19	39.28%
57	North Carolina St.	90.57	38.30%
58	Oregon	91.04	37.22%
59	Belmont	93.31	33.93%
60	Iona	93.59	33.06%
61	Oral Roberts	93.86	32.21%
62	Akron	94.83	30.49%
63	Saint Joseph’s	96.04	28.46%
64	Louisiana St.	96.22	27.71%
65	Marshall	96.61	26.69%
66	South Dakota St.	97.05	25.60%
67	Illinois	97.90	24.00%
68	Colorado	98.60	22.59%
69	Minnesota	98.92	21.66%
70	Nevada	98.95	21.10%
71	New Mexico St.	102.05	16.55%
72	Central Florida	103.16	14.57%
73	Dayton	103.70	13.32%
74	Tennessee	103.93	12.49%
75	Davidson	107.93	6.58%
76	Wyoming	108.58	5.17%

In addition, the conference breakout is included below. The cutoff between virtual locks and teams just “comfortably in” as defined by a better than 98% chance of getting in is between UNLV above. The next cutoff, which denotes which teams should feel comfortable with a greater than 75% chance of receiving a tournament bid occurs between Alabama and Harvard. Of course Harvard should win the Ivy league’s automatic bid as regular season champion and won’t require an at-large bid. “Lost Bids” denote those reserved for teams that could get into the NCAA tournament by winning their conference tournament that would not otherwise get an at-large bid, thus shrinking the number of available at-large bids for other teams.

	Current	Proj	Lock/Close	Proj. In	Bubble In	Bubble Out	In Contention
BE	10	9	5	2	3	-	10
B10	7	7	5	-	2	2	9
B12	6	6	3	1	2	-	6
ACC	5	4	3	1	1	1	6
SEC	5	5	2	2	1	2	7
P12	3	2	-	1	2	3	6
MWC	3	3	2	1	-	2	5
WCC	3	3	-	2	1	-	3
A10	2	3	1	1	-	3	5
CUSA	2	2	-	1	1	2	4
MVC	2	2	1	1	-	-	2
SunBelt	1	1	-	-	1	-	1
Ivy	1	1	-	-	1	-	1
OVC	1	1	-	1	-	-	1
BW	1	1	-	-	1	-	1
CAA	1	1	-	-	1	1	2
Summit	-	-	-	-	-	2	2
WAC	-	-	-	-	-	2	2
MAC	-	-	-	-	-	1	1
MAAC	-	-	-	-	-	1	1
ASun	-	-	-	-	-	1	1
Horizon	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Lost Bids		2					-
Auto Bids	15	15	15				15
	68	68	37	14	17	23	91
Note: Conferences listed above with zero projected bids are included in auto bids.