Bracket Projections: Monday, Nov 14th

So, I like doing these all year long, which is why I’m doing one after the first week even though there is no practical reason to be forecasting anything right now.  From a personal standpoint, it gets me in the habit of evaluating teams right away, so that is the single biggest benefit of it.  The order, or rank, or seed of the teams doesn’t really matter because there is so little to evaluate that they are impossible to rank.  But, merely evaluating them keeps me personally up to speed with what each team has done.

This is a CHECKPOINT of CURRENT MERIT, not a prediction of the future or even how good I think the teams currently are.  If it were, I’d be crazy.  It’s merely ranking what a team has done on the court up to this point.  Wagner and Yale are not likely to end up as #1 seeds.  I know that.  But, they’ve both won on the road against good teams, so they’re currently ahead of everyone who’s done nothing other than win a buy game at home when doing a checkpoint of current merit.  That’s all this is.

In a nutshell, any team that won a game that was not a home buy game moved ahead of all the teams that only won a home buy game.  No teams that lost a game that was not a buy game were punished for it, and no teams that won a buy game was rewarded for it.

I want to emphasize one more time that this is not a prediction of the future, or even a reflection of how good I think the teams currently are.  It is merely a merit ranking up to this point.

  1. INDIANA – Beat Kansas on a neutral floor
  2. ARINONA – beat Michigan State on a neutral floor
  3. WAGNER – won at UConn
  4. YALE – won at Washington
  5. NORTH CAROLINA – won at Tulane and at home against Chattanooga
  6. CLEMSON – won at home against Georgia
  7. MARQUETTE – blowout win against Vanderbilt
  8. SAINT MARY’S – convincing win against a pretty good Nevada team
  9. Virginia – won at UNCG
  10. CHATTANOOGA – road win at Tennessee
  11. Oregon – neutral floor win vs Army
  12. Duke
  13. KENTUCKY
  14. KANSAS – lost to Indiana on a neutral floor, which is not damaging
  15. Villanova
  16. Xavier
  17. Wisconsin
  18. Michigan State – lost to Arizona on a neutral floor, which is not damaging
  19. Louisville
  20. Gonzaga
  21. Purdue
  22. Syracuse
  23. West Virginia
  24. Ucla
  25. RHODE ISLAND
  26. Creighton
  27. Texas
  28. Maryland
  29. Pittsburgh – won a buy game against Eastern Michigan, but they move up some because they’re semi-quality
  30. Stanford – neutral floor win vs Harvard
  31. Ohio State – won at Navy, so they move up some for the road win
  32. CINCINNATI
  33. Dayton
  34. Iowa State
  35. Florida State
  36. California
  37. Miami FL
  38. WICHITA STATE – blew out a pretty good Long Beach State team
  39. Seton Hall
  40. Texas A&M
  41. Butler
  42. Notre Dame
  43. SAN DIEGO STATE
  44. Virginia Tech
  45. Oklahoma
  46. Usc
  47. Florida
  48. Colorado
  49. Michigan
  50. Vcu
  51. NC State
  52. Connecticut
  53. MURRAY STATE – home win against a pretty good Illinois State team
  54. Kansas State
  55. RICE – won at James Madison
  56. Smu – blowout win over what we think is a good Eastern Michigan team
  57. MONMOUTH
  58. KENT STATE – we really like Ohio and Buffalo in this league as well, but Kent won away from home against Cleveland State
  59. NICHOLLS – won at Boston College
  60. WRIGHT STATE – we really like Valpo in this league, but Wright State is the only team that’s won a true road game.
  61. DELAWARE – two div1 wins, but we still like UNC Wilmington
  62. OMAHA – won at UCSB, and a close loss at USC
  63. UC DAVIS – two div1 wins
  64. JACKSONVILLE – won at Denver
  65. ALBANY – beat Penn State, but we still like Vermont and New Hampshire
  66. UT ARLINGTON – preseason favorite that won the opener
  67. WEBER STATE
  68. BUCKNELL – only team in the conference that’s won a div1 game, but American and Lehigh both almost knocked off ranked teams
  69. PRESBYTERIAN – Only Big South team with a div1 win
  70. TEXAS SOUTHERN – only SWAC team to win a div1 game
  71. NEW MEXICO STATE – no WAC team has won a div1 game yet, so we’re sticking with the preseason favorite, who didn’t look bad in their loss to Colorado State
  72. HOWARD – no MEAC team has won a div1 game yet, so we’re sticking with the preseason favorites

 

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