NCAA Tournament, Saturday 3.12 late evening

Likely my second to last update — the final one will come an hour or two prior to the Selection Sunday broadcast.

Read as S-Curve; Bold = Clinched Auto Bid; Italic = Auto Bid Placeholder

NCAA Tournament, Saturday 3.12, afternoon

Read as S-Curve; Italics = Auto Bid Placeholder; Bold = Clinched Auto Bid

NCAA Tournament, Friday March 11 am Update

Read as S-Curve; Bold = Clinched Auto Bid; Italic = Placeholder for Auto Bid

NCAA Tournament, Wed March 9 am

11 Conference Champions crowned, 21 to go. Yesterday had 2 strange ones on campus plus a last second win in the Horizon.

• Bellarmine wins the ASUN on its home floor…sending Jacksonville St to the dance. Bellarmine just came up from D2 and are ineligible due to an antiquated transition period rule.
• Bryant qualified for its first tournament with a home court thumping of Wagner. This one featured a brawl between the Bryant student section and Wagner families/supporters that paused the game for over 30 minutes before the celebration could begin again.
• Wright St with a more classic 1 point win over Northern Kentucky to get the Horizon crown.

Busy schedule today with the ACC 2nd round and a large number of other conferences kicking off. Go Deacs!

Read as S-Curve; Bold = Clinched Auto-Bid; Italics = Auto-Bid Placeholder

NCAA Tournament Bracket 3/8 am

Quiet night last night and fairly low impact of games today as the schedule gets busier. Things pick up as the week goes on with Thursday probably the most impactful day of the season for tournament hopefuls, with pretty much all the bubble teams in action.

Read as S-Curve; Bold = Clinched Auto Bid; Italic = Placeholder for Auto Bid;

Bracket Update – March 7

NCAA Tournament Update, March 6 early am Edition

NCAA Bubble Watch – March Madness Field Prediction

After a solid 2017 showing, I’ve been away the last 5 years. With my enthusiasm for College Basketball back this season (thank you Steve Forbes), and my attempts to look at the potential tournament field back to borderline obsessive over the last month, I figured I may as well post my field and compete in the Bracket Project again this year. Hopefully the shift from RPI to Net as a focal point helps rather than hurts my accuracy.

With that, here’s my field as it stands today:

FINAL Version – NCAA Bracket Projection

Here’s the final bracket with one contingency: if Cincy comes back to beat SMU, switch them. Both Michigan and Wisconsin are 6s, so no change stemming from that game.

1	Villanova	Kansas		Gonzaga	North Carolina
2	Oregon	Duke		Arizona	Kentucky
3	Louisville	Baylor		UCLA	Florida St.
4	Florida	Butler		Purdue	West Virginia
5	Iowa St.	Virginia		Notre Dame	SMU
6	Minnesota	Michigan		Wisconsin	Cincinnati
7	Creighton	Saint Mary’s		Maryland	Wichita St.
8	Arkansas	Oklahoma St.		Dayton	Miami FL
9	Virginia Tech	Seton Hall		Vanderbilt	Northwestern
10	Michigan St.	Wake Forest		South Carolina	Marquette
11	Kansas St.	VCU/Xavier		Providence/USC	Rhode Island
12	Princeton	UNC Wilmington		Middle Tennessee	Nevada
13	Vermont	East Tennessee St.		Bucknell	New Mexico St.
14	Northern Kentucky	Iona		Florida Gulf Coast	Winthrop
15	Kent St.	Troy		Texas Southern	North Dakota
16	South Dakota St.	New Orleans		NC Central	Jacksonville St.
16	Mount St. Mary’s	UC Davis
	Last Four In	First Four Out		Second Four Out	Four More
	VCU	Syracuse		Indiana	Illinois
	Xavier	Illinois St.		Iowa	Georgia
	Providence	TCU		Houston	Alabama
	USC	Clemson		California	Utah
33	Virginia Tech	89.04	48	Syracuse	118.81
34	Seton Hall	92.97	49	Illinois St.	122.25
35	Vanderbilt	93.96	50	Nevada	124.13
36	Northwestern	94.04	51	UNC Wilmington	125.29
37	Marquette	95.08	52	TCU	126.29
38	South Carolina	95.82	53	Princeton	132.15
39	Wake Forest	97.76	54	Clemson	132.53
40	Michigan St.	100.60	55	Indiana	132.68
41	Kansas St.	100.69	56	Vermont	132.98
42	VCU	101.86	57	Iowa	133.09
43	Xavier	102.11	58	Houston	133.48
44	Rhode Island	102.61	59	California	134.29
45	Providence	108.17	60	Illinois	136.18
46	Middle Tennessee	111.65	61	Georgia	137.44
47	USC	117.70	62	Alabama	140.30
			63	Utah	142.76

March 11, Late Evening Update

Great weekend for the bubble teams, with almost zero stolen bids shrinking the bubble. On behalf of bubble teams everywhere, many thanks to Middle Tennessee, Nevada, the top tier of the AAC for making their finals, the top of all the major conferences for snuffing out teams like TCU and Alabama by the semis at the latest. Even the A-10, a perennial bid thief, behaved versus its own history and looks poised to get either 2 or 3 teams in depending on tomorrow’s VCU/URI final.

The top lines got easier with Duke winning the ACC, and the real trouble picking where teams get slotted starts around #12, the final 3-seed. I’ve got 6 teams stacked right on top of each other for spots 12-17, with Florida State just getting the nod over Iowa St/WVU and Butler moving to the back of that group and the top 5 seed for now. I’ll spend a little more time on that tomorrow.

The middle tier has a ton of intrigue as well. There are a handful of teams that could range from a 6 to a 12 depending on what the committee prioritizes. Wichita St and St Mary’s are computer rankings darlings with sparse big wins (though plenty of blowout wins), while teams like Vanderbilt have a great set of overall wins but also test the committee’s mettle by positioning themselves as the first ever 15-loss at large team. Within this tier it becomes a solve for who you want to win a comparison and I can almost without fail put together a “blind resume” comparison that solves for that answer. I’ll make this my reminder to ignore blind resumes posted with selective data and without context in the future.

Ok, no more words: with about 18 hours to go, here’s a good look at where we stand.

1	Villanova	Kansas		Gonzaga	North Carolina
2	Arizona	Duke		Oregon	Kentucky
3	UCLA	Louisville		Baylor	Florida St.
4	Florida	Purdue		West Virginia	Iowa St.
5	Butler	Virginia		Notre Dame	Cincinnati
6	Minnesota	Creighton		SMU	Wisconsin
7	Michigan	Maryland		Oklahoma St.	Saint Mary’s
8	Virginia Tech	Dayton		Wichita St.	Miami FL
9	Vanderbilt	Seton Hall		Arkansas	Marquette
10	Michigan St.	Wake Forest		South Carolina	Northwestern
11	Kansas St.	Xavier/Providence		VCU	Middle Tennessee
12	Vermont	Nevada		UNC Wilmington	URI/USC
13	Princeton	East Tennessee St.		Bucknell	New Mexico St.
14	Northern Kentucky	Iona		Florida Gulf Coast	Winthrop
15	UC Irvine	Texas Southern		Kent St.	Troy
16	Mount St. Mary’s	South Dakota St.		Jacksonville St.	North Dakota
16	New Orleans	NC Central
	Last Four In	First Four Out		Second Four Out	Four More
	VCU	Syracuse		Iowa	Princeton
	Providence	Illinois St.		Indiana	Alabama
	Rhode Island	TCU		Houston	Georgia
	USC	Clemson		California	Utah
33	Vanderbilt	84.29	48	Syracuse	119.31
34	Seton Hall	85.22	49	Illinois St.	121.67
35	Arkansas	90.35	50	TCU	126.62
36	Marquette	93.37	51	Nevada	126.81
37	Northwestern	94.74	52	UNC Wilmington	132.18
38	South Carolina	95.03	53	Clemson	133.03
39	Wake Forest	98.59	54	Iowa	133.09
40	Michigan St.	100.60	55	Indiana	133.32
41	Kansas St.	100.69	56	Houston	133.63
42	Xavier	100.83	57	California	133.67
43	VCU	104.59	58	Princeton	136.61
44	Providence	108.17	59	Illinois	136.62
45	Middle Tennessee	111.50	60	Alabama	137.24
46	Rhode Island	117.17	61	Georgia	137.44
47	USC	118.02