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Before you look at the bracket, I want to make sure everyone knows what they are looking at. This is the way I think the bracket SHOULD look if today were Selection Sunday. I am not trying to guess what the actual committee will do. I don’t care. If that’s what you’re looking for, then CLICK HERE check out JON TEITEL’S BRACKET. He is objectively one of the best in the world when it comes to guessing what the actual committee will do.
I have some comments below explaining some of what I did, and there are more comments below that from Chad and possibly a few others from Hoops HD.
OTHERS CONSIDERED: Cincinnati, UAB, Florida, Dayton, Belmont, Wake Forest, Utah State, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Washington State, Fresno State
NOTES FROM THE PUPPET:
-I would like to start off by stating the obvious, and that’s that this is a perfect bracket. I am an Expert by trade, and what I have created is so perfect that I don’t think anyone else should even be allowed to comment on it or critique it.
-I have Kentucky on the #1 line. I’m not entirely sure if the real committee would give them one (at least, not yet), and if I were trying to guess the real committee I probably wouldn’t have them up there, but based on what they’ve done away from home the last three weeks, I think that they have shown that they are one of the four best teams on the court, and one of the four most deserving teams on paper. They won at Kansas and at Alabama when they had a full roster. They lost at Auburn without a full roster, but were very competitive against the top ranked team in the country, and they had a lead until they lost a key player in that game. Besides, even had they been at full strength losing on the road to the #1 team in the country does not constitute moving down from the #4 overall spot.
-I don’t have North Carolina in the field. I don’t have them in for the same reason I don’t have Washington State in. They’ve done absolutely nothing to deserve it on paper, and they haven’t looked anything like an NCAA Tournament team on the court. I self explanatory and not requiring any explanation as to why they’re not in. If anything, it’s those that are putting them in who need to explain themselves.
-BYU was a #11 seed, but needed to be switched with San Diego State on the #12 line to make the bracket work.
-I had been beating up on Loyola Chicago in recent weeks, but their win on Sunday at Missouri State was big and they’ve finally started to look good again on the court, so I’ve got them right on the #9 line.
-I have Providence on the #3 line and Marquette on the #4. I just don’t get why they aren’t getting more love. Providence is the first place team in the Big East. That alone should be worth quite a bit. Marquette just keeps adding big wins to their resume. How many good teams do Providence and Marquette have to beat before there is a consensus that they both should be protected seeds?
-I always say that you should never make selections or seedings that are historically categorical. There will be something in every year’s bracket that has never been in a bracket before. That being said, there are some categorical outliers in this one, particularly Iowa State and West Virginia being in the field despite being 4 and 5 games below .500 in conference play. West Virginia is also in last place and on a seven game losing streak. LSU has lost six of their last seven, which isn’t quite as bad, but still much worse down the stretch than any team that I can ever remember making the field. The thing is, when you look at the “entire body of work” there is enough there to where I can’t really seem to replace any of them with any of the teams I left out.
-Let’s go down to the last few teams in. New Mexico State and North Texas are actually sandwiched in between my First Four teams, so I guess they are technically inside the bubble. The problem is when you’re straddling the bubble like that, a loss of any kind could knock you outside of it, so in a way they really AREN’T inside the bubble because a loss in their conference tournaments (or at any other time) would probably knock them below the cutline.
-Last but not least, I agree with Chad’s bracket from a week ago that Carver Bible College belongs in the field!! Like Chad did a week ago, I have included them in the First Four, but UNLIKE Chad, I have opted to put them on the #16 line and have essentially created a sixth First Four game and expanded the field to 69 teams. The rules at Hoops HD for the individual Staff Brackets are that we can whatever we want to do for whatever reason! I am exercising my executive privilege!!
STAFF COMMENTS
From Chad:
– At least David admitted what he did by putting Kentucky on the 1 seed line — completely over-reacted to one single game. At least if you are going to react to a single win, have a team with the overall resume to back it up — and place Kansas there for what they did to Baylor. Rock Chalk has three more Quad 1 wins, and 5 more Quad 1 and 2 combined wins than UK. And one less loss. I know that Kentucky won head-to-head, but Kansas’ overall resume is so much better than Kentucky that head-to-head does not matter. Kentucky should be at the bottom of the 2 seed line.
– Having Duke on the 1 line over Purdue is also pretty stupid. David hates North Carolina, yet he awards Duke for winning at Chapel Hill. Purdue’s resume (including three tier 1A wins away from home) is flat out better and they belong on the 1 seed line, probably at #3 overall.
– Oregon is an 8 seed in David’s bracket. Oregon, but for three days in buildings without fans in Los Angeles, would not even be close to being in the field. They won at UCLA and at USC (the latter not looking that great anymore) and that is it. Add in two Tier 3 home losses to Colorado and Arizona State and the only case that can be made for the Ducks wearing white in their first Tournament game would be as the higher seeded team in a First Four game in Dayton.
– I thought David was an “Under the Radar” guy. Apparently he totally missed Iona’s loss at Niagara yesterday. I do think the Gaels have a path to an at-large bid, but they literally have to win every game until the MAAC tournament now. If they had beaten Niagara, a 10 seed would be reasonable. With the loss, they are a 12 seed at best, and quite possibly below the First Four teams.
– I hate to argue in favor of the Hoosiers, but Indiana is way under-seeded on the 11 line. This team has huge wins over Ohio State and (what should be 1 seed) Purdue. They won away from home against Notre Dame, which is rightfully now in David’s field. They also have a pair of true road wins, so at least they can win against someone away from Assembly Hall. Indiana should be an 8 or 9 seed.
– I was actually ok with most of David’s bracket until I reached his First Four. Iowa is better than the First Four as some of their best wins have actually improved (by those teams playing better) lately. VCU got crushed last week at home by Dayton. They are on the board, but OUT. Saint Louis picked up a nice win over Dayton (at home) but they have not really done much other than winning at Boise State when Boise was playing bad early in the year. The Billikens may be close, but they are OUT. West Virginia has lost 7 in a row and is in last place in their conference. They are NOT EVEN CLOSE. How does a win at UAB (which is not in the field) get you into it?
– Florida deserves to be in right now. Even without Colin Castleton, who should be back, they have won three in a row to improve to 15-8 overall. That is more than enough to overlook whatever happened early in the year against Texas Southern and put this team in.
– Wake Forest also belongs in. The Deacons have 19 wins and are 9-5 in conference. They pickled up another Tier 2 road win at Florida State this weekend. That is enough to be sent to Dayton over the garbage teams that David put in there.
– My last team in would be Stanford, but cases can be made for Belmont, North Carolina (no bad losses is better than the rest of the bubble’s bad losses) or Oklahoma.
– Carver Bible is way better than a 16 seed. In fact, I like them better than a couple of David’s 1 seed choices.