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Bracketology

DrKlahn said:
I think we are looking at a group that looks like this:

SOUTH (Memphis)
1. Duke/UNC
2. Kentucky
3. Florida State
4. UCLA

And a group that looks like this:

EAST (MSG)
1. Villanova
2. Duke/UNC
3. Baylor
4. Florida

Take your pick.
Click to expand...


Man, I sure nailed the East. I guess I was wrong to assume that teams in the South would be seeded according to basketball ability.
 
As the final push for 1-seeds heats up this November, it's time once again to project the top line of the bracket. The regions are ordered by my subjective assessment of what Duke's preferences would be, and not by S-curve overall seeding.

SOUTH

Atlanta, GA
Philips Arena (home of the Hawks of the NBA)
Host: Georgia Tech
Approximate miles from Durham, NC: 400

Duke (ACC)
Kenpom projected record: 24-5 (14-4 in conference)
Number of games against Kenpom top 25 opponents (excluding tournaments): 7

Notes: Duke does not have the ideal schedule for seeding purposes (see notes for Villanova below). It shouldn't matter. If Duke finishes with 7 losses against their tough schedule (5 projected, plus 1 more in the Phil Knight tournament, plus 1 more in the ACC tournament), they should still be a 1-seed.

EAST

Boston, MA
TD Garden (home of the Bruins of the NHL and the Celtics of the NBA)
Host: Boston College
Approximate miles from Durham, NC: 700

Villanova (Big East)
Kenpom projected record: 24-5 (14-4 in conference)
Number of games against Kenpom top 25 opponents (excluding tournaments): 3

Notes: Villanova has the ideal schedule for seeding purposes, based on how the Selection Committee typically weighs certain factors (e.g., number of losses, RPI, overall SOS, record against top 50, etc.). Lots of good but not great opponents to buoy the SOS while avoiding high risk games against great opponents.

MIDWEST

Omaha, NE
CenturyLink Center (home of various Creighton University athletic programs)
Host: Creighton
Approximate miles from Durham, NC: 1200

Wichita State (American)
Kenpom projected record: 24-4 (15-3 in conference)
Number of games against Kenpom top 25 opponents (excluding tournaments): 4

Notes: The American poses a surprisingly high number of at-risk games for Wichita State. 2 other games barely missed the top 25 cut, as SMU is currently #27 on Kenpom. Wichita State should be really good, though, and with their move to a tougher conference from the MVC, they shouldn't be subject to their annual egregious under-seeding anymore. The fight with Kansas over this spot will be fun to follow. I wouldn't be surprised to see Wichita State and Kansas as the 1 and the 2 in this region in whatever order.

WEST

Los Angeles, CA
STAPLES Center (home of the Kings of the NHL and the Clippers and Lakers of the NBA)
Host: Pepperdine
Approximate miles from Durham, NC: 2500

Arizona (Pac-12)
Kenpom projected record: 25-4 (15-3 in conference)
Number of games against Kenpom top 25 opponents (excluding tournaments): 2

Notes: It would take a miserable coaching performance or string of significant injuries for Arizona not to get this spot.
 
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Sean Miller has opened the door for Duke to grab the West 1-seed, but Bobby Hurley may lock it up himself. DTFU.
 
With UVA's usual rise, the fact that we only play UVA once and it's at Duke is turning out to be a big deal. Seems like Duke and UVA will battle it out for the South, with Duke having the edge now and in the head to head down the road.

Villanova still feels locked in for the East.

Kansas vs. Michigan State vs. Wichita State for the Midwest

The West will probably get one of the losers in the other battles, since Arizona dumpstered themselves and the Pac-12 is gross again. Gonzaga would need to have no more than 1 more loss to give the Committee a chance at placing a proper geographical 1-seed.

The SEC is actually strong this year, but the top-heaviness with their three very strong teams makes them more of an afterthought for the 1 line. Those teams should cannibalize each other.
 
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Another interesting side-story will be if we can avoid being in the same location as UNC for the first weekend, especially given potentially strong UVA and Florida teams and that Charlotte is the only East Coast location. The sites in play would be Charlotte, Pittsburgh and Nashville (Detroit is the only other first round site east of the Mississippi). Charlotte is technically the closest location by miles for each of Duke, UNC, UVA and Florida. That said, there is only a 50 mile difference between Charlottesville-Charlotte and Charlottesville-Pittsburgh, and there's a 130 mile difference between Gainesville-Charlotte and Gainesville-Nashville, so not sure what they would do if all four teams are top four seeds, but Duke and UNC are NOT the two highest ranked among those four.

My experience is that Charlotte is a heavy UNC hub and Duke would effectively be playing another road game in the second round there if both Duke and UNC ended up in that pod.
 
Just keep moving this thread along so the Spring 2017 stuff no longer shows up at the top of the page.

Bad mammories.
 
They're still using arbitrary cutoff points, which is still dumb and can easily be done away with using any basic model. No reason for the #75 team to be treated completely differently than the #76 team while the #74 and #75 teams are treated as the exact same opponent.

We should be extremely interested whenever a Duke opponent that is on one of the cutoff borders is playing, and we should root for those teams to do well in particular. For example, using Kenpom as the relevant rating system for simplicity, Duke plays at #74 Wake Forest and #77 NC State, which are right on the border between Quadrant 1 and 2 for away games, so we need to become huge Wake and NCSU fans this season. Don't really care about how St. John's, Syracuse or Florida State do, though, since they're close to the center of the relevant Quadrants. Dumb.

Of course, I will list the borderline Duke opponents that we should care most about later on in this thread.
 
^^ If the teamsheet listed is accurate, looks like they're just using RPI to delineate quadrants. Someone could probably put together a TDF google spreadsheet/table to track our resumé.

Moreover, Pomeroy only weighs 1/6th in the metrics weighting, and it doesn't even seem like overall metrics rank plays that large of a role than usual, so that helps us as well. RPI still getting the lions share of attention.
 
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Good news: Duke is still #1 in RPI, per realtimeRPI.com

MSU 6th
Texas right on the border...75th

Florida outside the top 100. Ugh.

I really hope our MSU win is given more weight than a win over #74 Montana State, if that stupid all or nothing threshold is really what's used.
 
Updated projections at what is hopefully a low point during Duke's season:

East (overall #1)
1 Villanova (projected 27-4 before postseason) (Big East champ)
2 Purdue (25-6)

Midwest (overall #2)
1 Michigan State (27-4) (Big Ten champ)
2 Wichita State (25-5) (American champ)

South (overall #3)
1 Virginia (24-6) (ACC champ)
2 Texas A&M (24-7) (SEC champ)

West (overall #4)
1 Arizona State (24-6) (Pac 12 champ)
2 Duke (25-6)

Big 12 notably absent from the top 2 lines. I don't think that holds, but I also don't see anyone but Kansas winning the Big 12, and they are projected at 9 losses.
 
Lol at having ASU as our 1 seed in the West. Fortunately we'd lose before we played them.
 
No. 2-seed Duke squeezing past someone like Alabama or Texas Tech in a Charlotte arena full of No. 1 UNC fans, then flying to LA to lose to West Virginia in the Sweet 16 is such a late-stage K-era cliche at this point, but it's exactly what will happen.
 
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