For our Selection Sunday Bracket Racket, CLICK HERE.
New Hampshire at NJIT, 7:00 PM Eastern, free streaming at watchcollegeinsider.com
Welcome to the 2015 CIT Game of the Day feature here on HoopsHD! As we have done the past several years, we will be highlighting one game per day from the best postseason college basketball tournament in the country (or maybe second best if you include that 68 team thing that gets started this week also). Tonight, we start the CIT off with a bang, as our adopted team, the Team of the People, the only Independent team in the country, the one and only New Jersey Institute of Technology plays its first ever postseason Division I college basketball game!
NJIT enters the game tonight having gone 18-11 on the season, including the thrilling win at Michigan and having been very competitive against Villanova (the second best team in the nation according to the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee). They also picked up big home wins this year over Yale and St. Francis-Brooklyn, en route to a school record 18 victories. Given this program’s success, and the fact that most of the team returns next year, NJIT is clearly a program on the rise that we do not believe will continue to be passed up by conferences for membership much longer, especially with a new athletic facility in the works.
While the NJIT story this year has been a great one, we would be remiss if we overlooked the tale of their opponent tonight, the New Hampshire Wildcats. As with NJIT, UNH is making its first ever postseason appearance tonight after putting together a 19-12 regular season that included a thrilling America East quarterfinal home win over Hartford. The Wildcats have struggled as much over the past 20+ years as any Division I program and the sudden turnaround this season has been truly remarkable. As with NJIT, this is a young team with most of its roster returning next year. Unlike NJIT, New Hampshire will have a shot at an NCAA tournament bid next year, and may even be our preseason pick next year to win the America East.
The 2015 postseason will truly begin with a bang tonight, as there are very few more exciting stories out there among teams that did not make the NCAA tournament than the two these teams have. And given that it is the only D1 game being played tonight, there is no excuse not to watch!
Hoops HD Mock Selection Committee Report: Sunday, March 15th
Bracket Below Updated at 4pm, est
For our most recent, and final, Championship Week Video Notebook, and Viewing Guide for today’s games – CLICK HERE
Last night, the committee selected the entire field, seeded the entire field, scrubbed the entire field, and set up contingency plans for the games today. UConn was not selected as an at-large, but if they win they will land at #47 on the seed list, which places them on the #12 line. If they lose, then another spot in the field will open up, and Temple will make the field as our final at-large selection. The fact that they are in the same conference as UConn is a coincidence. That did not factor in to the decision.
As you can see below, the teams that were considered but did not make the field as at-larges are Colorado State, UConn (who is still playing), Georgia, Illinois, Murray State, Texas A&M, Tulsa and UCLA.
I realize that many bracketology sites are projecting that Georgia is not only in the field, but safely in the field. Quite frankly, we don’t care. If the actual committee takes them it would not surprise me because I see how a case can be made, and I see how they’ve done things that this committee has a tendency to like. Same with Colorado State and Tulsa. Our committee did not like them. Although we go through the same process the real committee does and use the same procedures and information, we really aren’t all that concerned with guessing what a committee of people we don’t really know are going to do. We are more into analysis than we are fortune telling, and aren’t really worried too much about what our final “score” is when it comes to matching what the real committee does.
Having said that, I do think Wisconsin will get a #1 seed from the real committee if they win today, and perhaps even if they don’t. I also think that Colorado State will make the real committee’s field. We are going to scrub our bracket one more time, and we make one or both of those changes ourselves, but I’d venture to say that Colorado State probably will not be voted in to ours.
Below is what our board looked like after we finished last night. Below that is a preliminary bracket based on our seed list, but it is not the final bracket. I checked it and I don’t think there are any mistakes, but it was 4am, I don’t have the software that our chairman has that immediately point out errors, so if there are any, a thousand pardons. I realize Butler v Indiana is a rematch, and that the committee likes to avoid those, but in this case I felt I had to move too much around to avoid it. That, and who the hell wouldn’t want to see those two go at it again??
Georgia Southern and Georgia State are also accounted for. Georgia State will be a #14 seed, whereas Georgia Southern would be a #15 seed.
THE BOARD
THIS IS OUR FINAL BRACKET IF SMU BEATS UCONN. We had to move BYU v Miami from the #11 down to the #12 line, and Wofford up to the #11 line to meet bracketing rules
THIS IS OUR BRACKET IF UCONN BEATS SMU. No teams had to be moved off their natural seed lines
NOTES ON THE BRACKET
-The biggest teams we had disagreements on were Butler, Louisville and SMU. Some of us felt that Butler was clearly better than Louisville, and made several motions to get the two switch, but by that point we needed seven out of ten committee members to agree with the motion and it could not pass.
-Kyle Lamb and Lee Delvecchio were very much against SMU, and they ended up motioning several times to move them down. Some were against it, but they were able to convince the majority, so the teams were moved.
-We do feel that the real selection committee will give Wisconsin a #1 seed, and that they will either replace Duke or Virginia. Some of us feel Colorado State is getting in to the real tournament, but not everyone. Many of us also feel Georgia is getting in to the real tournament, but that they do not belong in. We feel they will replace either BYU or Temple, most likely BYU.
It’s up to the committee now. It’s called Bracketology, but I actually hate that term. It’s a qualitative process that basically consists of ten individuals conducting a year long examination. You can quantify what it will approximately look like, but you cannot quantify the entire thing.