It is my (Chad’s) turn to do the staff bracket this week, so here it goes. Below is the bracket (followed by some notes) through all games of Sunday, January 27. Note that this is how I feel the bracket should be as of right now, and is not an attempt to forecast what will happen as more games play out or to predict how the actual committee will decide things.
CHAD’S NOTES
– My top four teams out were, in order, Alabama, Pitt, UCF and Butler. My next four were Florida, Providence, Northwestern and San Francisco. Also considered were Arizona, Saint Louis, Clemson and Utah State.
– Tennessee is #1 overall, but only by a very slim margin over Duke. I also placed Michigan to #3 overall, above #4 Virginia, because I just like the good on their profile, including 10 wins against the Board, better than UVA.
– Gonzaga is a 2 seed, and behind both Kentucky and Michigan State on the 2 line. At the end of the day, all the Zags have is one notable win, and no matter how good it was (and it was a great one!), it is only one win. There are multiple teams below them in the bracket that have a better overall collection of wins. In fact, I only have Gonzaga this high because of the “eye test” — their profile would probably place them on the 3 or 4 line.
– Kansas is at the top of the 3 line because of their wins, even though they came before they lost Azubuike for they year. I am not confident that the Jayhawks will stay this high, and honestly believe that the streak of Big 12 titles may come to an end this year.
– LSU is a protected seed, and deserves to be one. The Bayou Bengals have won 9 straight games and are one of the hottest teams in the country. Another red hot team is 5 seed Purdue, whose overall resume is starting to match their metrics, and they proved it yesterday by beating Michigan State. Of course, Purdue rising also helps the resumes of the teams they lost to, including Virginia Tech, Florida State and Texas.
– Yes, I have a Pac-12 team wearing white in the first round, albeit as an 8 seed. I just really like the way Washington is playing right now, and with the garbage down at the bottom of the bracket, I went with eye test more than resume in this seeding.
– Finally, I honestly could not stomach filling the last at-large spot with any of the garbage from the power conferences. I chose Creighton for the second to last spot only because the Bluejays really don’t have a single bad loss on the year. For the last spot, I went with a second SoCon team, UNC-Greensboro, because I would rather see them in the field than anyone else I looked at.
– In terms of the bracket, the Midwest Region looks outright dangerous, and a few interesting matchups popped up including Louisville vs Murray State, an old Big 8 game in Kansas State vs Nebraska and a pod in Tulsa (West Region) with three Texas teams in it.
COMMENTS FROM HOOPSHD STAFF:
FROM DAVID
-Chad continues to downplay Gonzaga because they don’t have as many good wins. How many good wins does a team need? I don’t think you should look at a team’s resume like it’s a scorecard, at least not entirely. Gonzaga has no losses to teams below Chad’s #2 line. Virginia is the only team that he has on the #1 line that can say that. Gonzaga’s two losses were to Tennessee (his overall #1) without two key players, and at North Carolina, also without two key players. They’ve clearly avoided losses to teams outside the top eight. They also have a win away from home against a team on Chad’s #1 line. No one else on his #1 line can say that either. But, since they don’t have wins against Purdue, Northwestern, and Indiana, in Chad’s mind they’re down on the scorecard.
-I’m not feeling Nevada quite like Chad is. I know they only have one loss, and I do appreciate how many games they’ve won away from home. I’m just not seeing a #3 seed. Arizona State is the only team they’ve beaten that’s in his field, and while they do have a lot of decent wins, they don’t have a lot of good wins by protected seed standards. That’s only part of the problem, though. The other is that they haven’t exactly buried some of the teams that you would expect them to dominate like Akron, and Boise State, and Grand Canyon. I know that those are decent teams, but they’re also teams that a #3 seed wouldn’t normally sweat out.
-I’m not all that big on Indiana. They’ve been blown off of the planet for about six straight games now. The problem is, I don’t know what to do with them. I guess a #10 seed makes as much sense as anything right now.
-When I look at the bottom of Chad’s bracket, I’m really holding my nose. I’d like to throw two teams out there that I think are better than basically anyone from the #10 line down to the bottom of the bubble, and in some cases actually have better paper. One is Lipscomb, who’s in his bracket as an auto-bid winner, and the other is Belmont. Lipscomb beat TCU at TCU. That gives them not only a head to head win over TCU, but a quad 1 win, which is something TCU doesn’t have. They also won at SMU, which TCU did as well, but I don’t think TCU should get more credit for the win. The losses are also similar, and I really just think Lipscomb is better. Same with Belmont, and although their resume isn’t quite as good as Lipscomb’s, it’s probably better than Auburn’s. Belmont had a much easier time winning at Murray State than Auburn did in beating Murray State at home. And if you feel that I’m cherry picking with that comment, then keep in mind that Murray State is Auburn’s best win right now, so it’s totally fair to scrutinize it. Belmont also beat Lipscomb twice. So, while I agree that the teams from the multi-bid leagues on the bubble smell really bad right now, and while I agree taking UTR teams in their place is a good idea, I feel he should have taken even more UTR teams than what he did.
FROM JOHN
-I think a case could be made for Michigan to be considered for #1 overall when you look at their profile as a whole. If you look at their wins against Quadrant 1, it includes a 17-point win at home against Michigan, a 19-point home win against Purdue and a 27-point win at Villanova. They are also a very respectable 6-1 away from home and their schedule will only get tougher as they get deeper into conference play.
-It was good to see that Buffalo wasn’t punished too harshly for finally stumbling in a conference game at Northern Illinois, but they can’t lose too many more games in order to stay above the First Four. It’s too bad that both Buffalo and Bowling Green stumbled last week – they have their first matchup scheduled for Friday night at BG.
-Baylor and Kansas State on the same line is also intriguing. Both teams have wins against Iowa State and Texas Tech, although K-State got their win at Iowa State (something Kansas could not claim, for example). While Baylor has greatly improved with their roster getting healthy, they also have an iffy loss at Wichita State and two really bad home losses against Texas Southern and Stephen F. Austin. K-State’s worst losses are at Tulsa and Texas A&M.
-I’m starting to wonder if there’s a scenario where the Big East might only get two teams into the field this year. Villanova and Marquette are running away from the rest of the league. I mean, REALLY running away. The “Little Eight” are all within a half game of each other in the standings, and Seton Hall is going in the completely wrong direction after getting swept by DePaul and losing against Providence and Villanova. The Johnnies have home wins against VCU (or at least in a neighboring borough) and Marquette but not much else. Creighton is another team that Chad threw in at the last minute, but they cannot slip up against either St. John’s or Xavier at home this week.
-The only reason a team like Indiana is still in the field is because I too can’t think of a team like Alabama or Pitt that I would put in their place. Teams like Oklahoma State and Xavier in recent years had 6-game losing streaks and still managed to get in the field, but they also had the benefit of rejuvenated rosters later in the year. Will Indiana get the same benefit of the doubt later in the year if they stop the bleeding?
