As the holiday weekend starts to wind down, it is our colleague John Stalica’s turn to put together the weekly Hoops HD staff bracket this week. This is NOT what Jon Teitel and Rocco Miller do as part of their exercise to guess what the Selection Committee does; rather this is what we feel the bracket should look like at this point in the season. Without further ado:
First Four Out: Indiana, Ohio State, Kansas State, Creighton
Others considered: Washington, Wisconsin, Virginia Tech, Oklahoma
– I think there is little doubt that Michigan is currently the top overall seed given their body of work and margin of victory; Arizona does have the singular best win with a victory at fellow 1-seed UConn.
– Teams like Vanderbilt and Nebraska get some benefit of the doubt with undefeated records going into conference play, but they don’t have the same level of quality wins as others in the top 2 lines. That said, Vandy did destroy Wake on the road and are more than capable of doing similar damage when SEC play rolls around.
– Ordinarily I should have Michigan in the Midwest Region, but the placement of Arizona and Iowa State as the top two seeds makes this impossible to pull off thanks to BYU. BYU can’t be in the West region because of Arizona and I doubt the Selection Committee would drop the Cougars from their natural 3-seed down to the 5-line for such an accomodation. I wonder what Chad would have done in this circumstance.
– I know I’m probably being a Big East homer having 5 teams from the league in the current bracket, but this again is where things stand through today. The margin of error is small for Villanova and Seton Hall and even smaller for Butler and St. John’s. However, as bad as the bubble is, I wouldn’t write off Creighton either. They are dismantling teams ever since the holiday break began.
– Frankly, Kansas State isn’t completely dead in the water either. The road win at Creighton is looming larger and they also have wins against Tulsa and California in their back pocket as well. They also have a neutral court win against Mississippi State, but the Bulldogs might be at the bottom of the SEC this season.
– I had VCU as my last team in the field thanks to a victory against Virginia Tech; they have almost no margin for error in the A-10 though. They’re going to have to put up a very strong conference record to stay in the at-large hunt.
COMMENTS FROM STAFF:
COMMENTS FROM DAVID GRIGGS:
-As much as I’ve beaten up on Kansas State, and while I initially did a spittake when I saw how close Stalica had them to his field, he actually does have a point. I don’t know how this happened, but their profile actually isn’t awful. The Big 12 will give them the chances they need to play their way inside the bubble if they’re good enough. Having said that, I still think that the “good enough” part of that will prove to be a big problem.
-I’m actually with Stalica on Butler! I think they have a good enough team to rack up the record they need to in Big East play to make the field.
-As is the case with most bracket projections, when I look at the teams on the 12 line, and then compare them to the teams on the 9 line, I’d much rather play the teams on the 9 line.
Hoops HD Staff Bracket – Friday, December 26
As the holiday weekend starts to wind down, it is our colleague John Stalica’s turn to put together the weekly Hoops HD staff bracket this week. This is NOT what Jon Teitel and Rocco Miller do as part of their exercise to guess what the Selection Committee does; rather this is what we feel the bracket should look like at this point in the season. Without further ado:
First Four Out: Indiana, Ohio State, Kansas State, Creighton
Others considered: Washington, Wisconsin, Virginia Tech, Oklahoma
– I think there is little doubt that Michigan is currently the top overall seed given their body of work and margin of victory; Arizona does have the singular best win with a victory at fellow 1-seed UConn.
– Teams like Vanderbilt and Nebraska get some benefit of the doubt with undefeated records going into conference play, but they don’t have the same level of quality wins as others in the top 2 lines. That said, Vandy did destroy Wake on the road and are more than capable of doing similar damage when SEC play rolls around.
– Ordinarily I should have Michigan in the Midwest Region, but the placement of Arizona and Iowa State as the top two seeds makes this impossible to pull off thanks to BYU. BYU can’t be in the West region because of Arizona and I doubt the Selection Committee would drop the Cougars from their natural 3-seed down to the 5-line for such an accomodation. I wonder what Chad would have done in this circumstance.
– I know I’m probably being a Big East homer having 5 teams from the league in the current bracket, but this again is where things stand through today. The margin of error is small for Villanova and Seton Hall and even smaller for Butler and St. John’s. However, as bad as the bubble is, I wouldn’t write off Creighton either. They are dismantling teams ever since the holiday break began.
– Frankly, Kansas State isn’t completely dead in the water either. The road win at Creighton is looming larger and they also have wins against Tulsa and California in their back pocket as well. They also have a neutral court win against Mississippi State, but the Bulldogs might be at the bottom of the SEC this season.
– I had VCU as my last team in the field thanks to a victory against Virginia Tech; they have almost no margin for error in the A-10 though. They’re going to have to put up a very strong conference record to stay in the at-large hunt.
COMMENTS FROM STAFF:
COMMENTS FROM DAVID GRIGGS:
-As much as I’ve beaten up on Kansas State, and while I initially did a spittake when I saw how close Stalica had them to his field, he actually does have a point. I don’t know how this happened, but their profile actually isn’t awful. The Big 12 will give them the chances they need to play their way inside the bubble if they’re good enough. Having said that, I still think that the “good enough” part of that will prove to be a big problem.
-I’m actually with Stalica on Butler! I think they have a good enough team to rack up the record they need to in Big East play to make the field.
-As is the case with most bracket projections, when I look at the teams on the 12 line, and then compare them to the teams on the 9 line, I’d much rather play the teams on the 9 line.