Bracket Projections: November 30th

READ THIS FIRST!!

-It is important to understand that these brackets are CHECKPOINTS on CURRENT MERIT.  They are not a forecast of what I think things will look like in March, or for that matter how good I actually think teams currently are.

For example, I believe that Iowa State and Villanova are both top ten teams, but they don’t have any really big wins yet, so they’re seeded below team who have won big games, especially if they’ve done it away from home.

On the flip side, I do not foresee Syracuse earning a #1 seed, but they won three big games away from home last week, and no one behind him has three wins of that caliber away from home.

-Bracket s this early really aren’t practical, but neither are April batting averages in baseball and there are people that like to look at those.  I do them this early for two reasons:  1) It’s fun to look at, and 2) This is a season long evaluation process, and doing them this early helps me evaluate.

-It’s also impossible to COMPLETELY eliminate suppositions when ranking the teams.  You need to play at least a football season (twelve games) before you have enough data to simply go off the data.  We’ve played just about half that, as most teams have played six games.

NOTES ON THE BRACKET

-The week of Thanksgiving is one of the biggest weeks of the season, because most teams play more games than they do in any other single week, and so many of them are away from home in tournaments.  Tournaments have a natural structure of winners playing winners, so it’s a good chance for them to get quality wins away from home, which is especially important for teams who don’t play strong conferences.  So, while the final bracket probably won’t look anything like this, a lot of what happened this past week will definitely come into play.

-It’s also a week where we see teams that were nowhere near the rankings when the season started explode onto the national scene.  Providence and Xavier come to mind this year.  Monmouth also had a huge week and an argument could be made that they belong in the rankings, but I’m not expecting them to end up there.  But, for now, they have wins against USC, Notre Dame, and UCLA all away from home.  There are teams that make the NCAAs who don’t manage three wins away from home that are that good.  Their margin for error is small, but they’ve put themselves in a great position if they can run over their conference.

-Things are bad for Notre Dame right now.  They’re infinitely worse for Wichita State.  At full strength the Shockers are easily a top 25 team, but they’re without so many key players due to injury that they’re going to have trouble finishing in the upper half of the Missouri Valley as it currently stands.  They lost all three games in the Advocare Classic, and didn’t look particularly impressive in any of them.

-UALR and TX Arlington had huge weeks.  Arlington won at Memphis and at Ohio State, and Little Rock picked up notable wins at Tulsa and San Diego State.  Both are currently inside the bubble, but again, it’s early.  By the end of the year, the win at Ohio State won’t look like much if the Buckeyes keep playing the way they did this past week.

-I think Valparaiso and William & Mary are both good enough to land inside the bubble and not need the automatic bid to make the field.  Having said that, both had awful losses this past weekend.  Valpo went down at Ball State, and W&M fell at Howard.  Those losses are particularly damaging because they won’t have a whole lot of opportunities to offset them with quality wins.

-Northeastern was having a bad year until this past weekend, but finally picked up a big win at Miami FL and looked like the kind of team we thought they could be.  That changed the entire complex of their season.  They went from looking like a team who was sweating out weak opponents to being a team with just one loss and a huge win at Miami FL.

-The seed list and notes are located below the bracket.

1. MICHIGAN STATE – win vs Kansas and Providence
2. SYRACUSE – big wins in Battle 4 Atlantis
3. KENTUCKY – win vs Duke (N)
4. Duke – only loss was to Kentucky
5. KANSAS – neutral floor wins against Vandy and UCLA
6. PROVIDENCE – win vs Arizona (N). no bad losses
7. West Virginia – unbeaten. Wins against San Diego St (N), Richmond (N)
8. Virginia – multiple decent neutral floor wins
9. Xavier – 4 wins away from home, including @ Michigan and vs Dayton
10. Maryland – decent wins vs Georgetown (H), Rhody (N), Illinois St. (N)
11. Texas A&M – neutral wins over Gonzaga and Texas
12. Miami FL – good wins away from home. Home loss to Northeastern
13. GONZAGA – neutral floor wins vs UConn and Washiongton
14. CINCINNATI – unbeaten with win v George Washington
15. Purdue – unbeaten with decent, but not great wins
16. North Carolina – some adequate wins, but no big ones
17. Wake Forest – notable wins against Indiana and UCLA. No bad losses
18. Connecticut – 2 close losses to Syracuse and Gonzaga. Win vs Michigan
19. Iowa State – unbeaten with decent wins against Colorado and Illinois
20. Villanova – unbeaten, but no big wins
21. GEORGE WASHINGTON – home win vs Virginia. No bad losses
22. Dayton – decent wins against William & Mary, Iowa, and Monmouth.
23. Richmond – wins @ Wake Forest and vs Cal. No bad losses.
24. OREGON – 5 wins, all at home, including Valpo and Baylor
25. Vanderbilt – neutral floor win vs Wake Forest
26. Arizona – no bad losses, but best win is vs Boise State (N)
27. Oklahoma – unbeaten. Best win @ Memphis
28. MONMOUTH – no bad losses. Wins @UCLA and vs Notre Dame
29. CHATTANOOGA – no bad losses. Wins @ Georgia and @ Illinois
30. South Carolina – unbeaten. Neutral floor wins against Hofstra and Tulsa
31. Butler – no big wins
32. Utah – no big wins
33. Louisville – unbeaten, but no big wins
34. NORTHEASTERN – bad loss to Miami OH, good win against Miami FL
35. Tulsa
36. COLORADO STATE – win @ Northern Iowa
37. NORTHERN IOWA – home wins against North Carolina
38. LITTLE ROCK – unbeaten. Wins @ San Diego State and Tulsa
39. Texas Arlington – wins @ Memphis and @ Ohio State
40. Georgetown – 3 losses by a total of 6pts. Win vs Wisconsin
41. VALPARAISO – bad loss at Ball St. Decent win @ Oregon St.
42. UTEP – unbeaten. Neutral wins against Colorado St. and SO Ill
43. Vcu – no good wins, but no bad losses
44. Unlv – win vs Indiana
45. Michigan
46. San Diego State
47. RADFORD – win @ Georgetown
48. Louisiana Tech – unbeaten. Wins against UTA and @ Ohio St.
49. William & Mary – good win at NC St, bad loss at Howard
50. NC State – beat LSU
51. Indiana – No good wins. Losses to Wake Forest and UNLV
52. WESTERN ILLINOIS – win @ Wisconsin, loss @ Creighton
53. Wisconsin
54. Colorado – no bad losses. Win @ Auburn
55. California – no bad losses, but no good wins
56. Washington – no bad losses. Neutral floor win vs Texas
57. Florida – no bad losses, but no good wins
58. Saint Joseph’s – 4-1 with a win vs Old Dominion
59. Florida State
60. Alabama
61. Notre Dame
62. Hofstra
63. Iowa
64. Evansville
65. Usc – no bad losses. Home wins against Monmouth and New Mexico
66. Byu
67. Seton Hall
68. BELMONT
69. Creighton
70. SACRAMENTO STATE – win @ Arizona St.
71. Rhode Island
72. Southern Illinois
73. Saint Louis
74. NORTH FLORIDA
75. Northwestern
76. UC IRVINE
77. Pittsburgh
78. Marquette
79. Baylor – no big wins
80. Kansas State
81. Oklahoma State
82. Unc Wilmington
83. TOLEDO – 3 div1 wins away from home
84. Saint Mary’s – unbeaten. Best win vs Stanford (H)
85. Davidson
86. Washington State
87. Houston
88. Clemson
89. HOWARD – win vs William & Mary (H)
90. YALE
91. BUCKNELL – 2 road wins
92. ALABAMA A&M – 2 road wins, including @ Tulane
93. NEW MEXICO STATE
94. ALBANY
95. TAMUCC
96. LIU BROOKLYN – only NEC team with winning record