Below are my Bracket Projections, and let me assure you that they are perfect!! But before you go any further, I want to make sure you know what you are looking at. This IS NOT an attempt to guess what the committee will do on Selection Sunday in March, nor is it an attempt to select and seed the teams based on how good I think they actually are. This is merely an assessment of teams’ merits up to this point. Nothing more. I believe Houston to be MUCH better than an #8 seed. They damn near knocked off a team that I have on my #1 line just the other night. But…when you look at their wins up to this point, the teams ahead of them have done more. That doesn’t mean that it’ll be that way at the end of the year, though. I’m expecting that it won’t be, but I’m not trying to guess the future. I’m just assessing the present.
OTHERS CONSIDERED: Wyoming, Iowa, Texas, DePaul, Virginia Tech, Michigan, Memphis, Northwestern, Mississippi State, Kentucky, Washington State, Fresno State, Santa Clara, Saint Louis, UCF
NOTES FROM DAVID:
-Right now, I have a lot of Under the Radar teams inside the bubble, and a lot of teams from multi-bid leagues outside of it. The reason is quality of wins, particularly quality of wins away from home. Those Under the Radar teams have won tougher games than the teams that weren’t selected.
-Texas is REALLY good, and in the end they will almost assuredly be there and probably be a protected seed, but as of today (which is all I care about) their best win is at home against Northern Colorado. There are close to 200 teams that are capable of matching that.
-Kentucky’s best win is at home against Ohio U. I think that’s a good Ohio U team, but beating them at home hardly screams that you’re a solid tournament team.
-Iona has beaten Alabama on a neutral floor and has a smattering of other decent wins on top of that. Some probably see them on my #5 line and think I’ve got them way too high. Truth be told, I think it’s easier to argue that they belong as high as the #4 line than it is to say they should be as low as the #6 line.
-Iowa State is just having a phenomenal season! They’ve played a tough schedule and they’ve won all their games.
-Dayton has perhaps the most scattershot resume of any team ever. When you look at their wins they top out as a protected seed, and when you look at their losses they bottom out far below the NIT. They were my last team in.