Bracket and comments only reflect games played prior to December 21st
It is our first JNG Bracket of the season!! In short, Joby’s Nitty Gritty Rankings (JNG) is a computer-based metric that our own Joby Fortson came up with (and appropriately named after himself) that predicts what the NCAA Selection Committee would do if the season ended today. How does it work??….I’m not entirely sure, but it is the most accurate computer-based metric at predicting the selection committee and You can read all about it and see it every day by CLICKING HERE
It is early in the season. There have not been nearly as many games played now as there will be by the end of the year, and because of that the metric may appear to be a little out of whack. Most notably, if good teams such as Duke have only won home buy games, or haven’t won games that are all that difficult to win, then a metric such as this is less likely to reward them. If by the end of the end of the season Duke has only managed to win home buy games, then they won’t be rewarded by the committee either. If, on the other hand, a team gets out there and beats multiple ranked teams like what Missouri has done, this ranking will reward the hell out of them. So, like all of our early season brackets, this is a CHECKPOINT and not a FORECAST. But, it still gives you a look at where teams would be ranked based on how the committee evaluates them if the season ended today
COMMENTS FROM DAVID
-It’s crazy seeing Rutgers on the #1 line, but why wouldn’t they be? They just beat Illinois, they’re the only team that’s won at Maryland, and they’re the only team that’s beaten Syracuse. So, of course they’re a #1 seed right now
-SMU as a protected seed might have people doing a spit-take as well, but this is a checkpoint, and right now they’re undefeated with a road win at Dayton (their only loss) and another win vs East Carolina, which is their only loss.
-There are a lot of good teams that are right outside the bubble such as Stanford, Lousisville, LSU, Texas Tech, Purdue, Indiana, NC State, and Florida. It wouldn’t shock me at all to see all of these teams safely inside the bubble by the end of the season, but at this point they still have some work to do. Texas Tech, while obviously good, hasn’t won a big game yet.
-The JNG, like the committee, likes teams that are unbeaten or close to it even if they’ve played a bit of a softer schedule. That helps explain the inclusion and seeding of teams like Chattanooga, Santa Clara, Georgia, Southern Illinois, Drake, and Washington State. As soon as these teams get a loss or two on their resumes you’ll likely see them drop because at present none of them really have any big wins to offset any sort of a loss.