I want to make sure everyone knows what they are looking at. This is merely what I feel is a CHECKPOINT of CURRENT MERIT. It is not an attempt to rank how good I think the teams actually are, nor is it an attempt to guess what the bracket in March will look like on Selection Sunday. Texas Tech is my pick to win it all, and they didn’t even make this field.
I used the JNG as a sorting tool. No team, even if they’re ranked high in the polls, was included if they did not have aTier 1, 2, or 3 win away from home, or at least a Tier 1 or 2 win at home. In other words, if a team’s only wins so far have been home buy games, like Texas Tech, and Kansas, and Kentucky, and a few others who are conspicuously missing, they were not included. This is a checkpoint of current merit, and at this point in the season they still don’t have any.
I realize many will consider this to be ridiculous to look at. And, I get that. It’s more about me going through the exercise of objectively evaluating the teams than it is about producing an accurate projection of the field. I know damn well that the final bracket won’t look anything like this.
Doing it this way left me with only 71 D1 teams and 1 D2 team to choose from. And for just the second time ever, a nonD1 team has been included in my projections!!
OTHERS CONSIDERED: Iowa, Saint Louis, UNLV, Central Connecticut
