Below are my bracket projections, and below that are Chad’s comments in regards to my bracket projections. As you can see by Chad’s comments, he agrees with some things but not others. When he agrees with me, his comments are correct. When he disagrees, his comments are incorrect.
No teams needed to move seed lines to meet the bracketing rules, unless I overlooked something. West Virginia and Oklahoma could potentially meet in the Sweet Sixteen, and if they were to play each other in the Big Twelve Tournament, one of them would have to be moved. Ohio State and Maryland have only played once, so a potential meeting within the Sweet Sixteen is within the rules. Same with Virginia and North Carolina.
Bracket updated by David Griggs on Monday, February 16th @ 12:30am, est. It reflects all games played through Sunday, February 15th
OUTSIDE THE BUBBLE/NEXT IN LINE: Oregon, Pittsburgh, Minnesota, George Washington, Purdue, Rhode Island, Davidson, Tulsa, UMass, Stanford, UTEP
CHAD’S NOTES ON DAVID’S BRACKET
I really hate agreeing with David, but I honestly only have a few places where I think he has gone wrong. However, where he did go wrong, he went very wrong.
On his three line, David has placed both Baylor and Oklahoma. Oklahoma does have the quality wins, though offset with too many losses, to at least make an argument for. Baylor is vastly overrated. The Bears have one and only one top 50 win away from home, and that win was at West Virginia whose profile has a ton of holes in it. Further, that is the Bears only top 100 true road win. Unless and until the Bears do more on the road, I do not think they deserve a protected seed.
David also placed both Louisville and Notre Dame on the 5 line. This is way too low for both teams. The Cardinals have no bad losses (and that NC State loss was not a bad one, even though its a game they should have won). and have won twice away from home against the top 50. I feel their dropping to a 5 seed was nothing more than a case of being unable to recall anything beyond what happened this weekend, probably because David has been hitting the Jim Beam bottle too much. Notre Dame is also underrated, with three top 50 wins away from home and only one loss outside the Top 25. I know the Irish played way too easy of a non-conference schedule but I believe they have proven themselves in ACC play and deserve a protected seed at the moment.
Georgia is way overrated as well, showing up on David’s 9 line. While the Bulldogs have a solid RPI and SOS, the fact is that they have only one win against a team that is solidly in the field, and that was a home win over Ole Miss. They also now have three sub-100 losses including a home loss this past weekend to Auburn. While I know that the bubble is still fairly large and probably extends up to the 9 line, I feel Georgia is much closer to the First Four than to wearing white jerseys in the Round of 64.
David did put both UCLA and NC State in his field which I agree with. However, I think both deserve to be above the First Four at this point. UCLA just picked up a huge home win over another Bubble team while NC State had the biggest win of any bubble team this weekend, winning at Louisville. When added to the home win over Duke and only one somewhat ugly loss (at Wake Forest), this NC State profile is better than 7 or 8 other teams in David’s field easily.
I have no idea why Boise State is in this field. The Broncos lost at Fresno State this weekend and I believe there are 8 or 9 teams not even in this field that have better profiles right now. Boise has only two wins against this field, and both came at home. Meanwhile they also have three sub-100 losses with two of them being sub-150. I personally would have chosen Purdue for this spot though could have understood picks of Oregon, Minnesota, Stanford, Tulsa or even *cover your ears* Davidson. While none of those teams has a great profile (Purdue’s being the best of the lot), they are all better than Boise.
Finally, I agree with David that Louisiana Tech is deserving of the automatic bid spot from Conference USA, but they probably should be down on the 14 line. CUSA is looking worse and worse each week and La Tech’s profile has as many sub-150 losses on it as 150+ wins (none of which are against anyone even near the bubble).