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Bracketology

I think it's unrealistic that both Big East teams will be 1's, especially if Michigan State wins out and Kansas/Duke play reasonably well. Both Villanova and Xavier have probably done well enough to be considered #3 overall if they win the BET, but whoever loses is going to be hard to justify as a 1-seed over teams that are obviously more talented and have better wins.
 
Hopefully that's right. I think it's much easier to keep Xavier off the 1 line if they don't win the BET as opposed to Villanova. I think the accepted narrative (which in this case is backed up by the predictive metrics) is that Nova is a top 3 team in the country and Xavier is fringe top 10. And Villanova also lost two of their games without a starter.
 
I think ultimately UVA goes South, Villanova East, Kansas Midwest, and Duke West. Getting Arizona State in the 2nd round would be horrible, but, outside of that the West Coast is really weak this year. I am worried in the NCAA Tournament going up against an elite defense like we did last year than an elite offense. For example, Tennessee and Texas Tech are two teams I would rather avoid. Their defenses are very good and their offenses aren't complete shit.

With our size and talent advantage inside the teams with great offense and horrible defense don't really worry me because we should be able to own the glass and score at will.
 
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The Villanova situation will sort itself out because they will win the BET. If they lose, they will not finish ahead of Xavier (presumably the team that would beat them, and the Big East regular season champs) or Kansas (conference championship in the league that makes everyone's d hard) or Michigan State (conference championship and a very long win streak). And clearly behind at least one ACC team, and maybe two.
 
The current bracketology would at least almost guarantee us spot in the Sweet Sixteen. It has currently has the #2 in the East, with our first round match-up vs Winthrop, who has #141 offense and #166 defense on KenPom. Automatic win.

In the second round we would either get Missouri or Providence. Missouri has #51 offense, #49 defense and is #44 on KP. Providence has #96 offense and #51 defense and is #72 overall.

Any scenario in which we get Providence in the 2nd round would be amazing.
 
Slap the Floor said:
The current bracketology would at least almost guarantee us spot in the Sweet Sixteen. It has currently has the #2 in the East, with our first round match-up vs Winthrop, who has #141 offense and #166 defense on KenPom. Automatic win.

In the second round we would either get Missouri or Providence. Missouri has #51 offense, #49 defense and is #44 on KP. Providence has #96 offense and #51 defense and is #72 overall.

Any scenario in which we get Providence in the 2nd round would be amazing.
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I don't care what Missouri's Kenpom numbers are. They also could be getting Michael Porter back. He is singlehandedly capable of destroying us.
 
rome8180 said:
Slap the Floor said:
The current bracketology would at least almost guarantee us spot in the Sweet Sixteen. It has currently has the #2 in the East, with our first round match-up vs Winthrop, who has #141 offense and #166 defense on KenPom. Automatic win.

In the second round we would either get Missouri or Providence. Missouri has #51 offense, #49 defense and is #44 on KP. Providence has #96 offense and #51 defense and is #72 overall.

Any scenario in which we get Providence in the 2nd round would be amazing.
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I don't care what Missouri's Kenpom numbers are. They also could be getting Michael Porter back. He is singlehandedly capable of destroying us.
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He is not capable of destroying the best defense in the nation.
 
Duke is now #1 on Sagarin, both Predictor and Rating.

So that’s #1 on Sagarin, #3 on Kenpom, #4 on RPI, #4 on BPI and #6 on KPI, which are all the metrics the Committee has said they will look at this season.

KPI looks bad to me and is just a proxy for RPI. Not sure how they rose to high enough prominence for anyone to care.
http://www.kpisports.net/about/
 


Gonzaga as a 5-seed is great.

Montana as a 15 is a disaster waiting to happen for somebody (Duke). 77 Kenpom. Main lineup is 4 juniors and 1 senior. Super-aggressive perimeter defense (lots of fouling, elite at generating steals/turnovers, great 3pt attempt prevention) while maintaining rim protection (#19 2pt% against). Greatest strength on offense is rebounding. We are 100% drawing them in the 1st round if we don't move up to the 1-line.
 
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SeanMayTriedToEatMe said:


Gonzaga as a 5-seed is great.

Montana as a 15 is a disaster waiting to happen for somebody (Duke). 77 Kenpom. Main lineup is 4 juniors and 1 senior. Super-aggressive perimeter defense (lots of fouling, elite at generating steals/turnovers, great 3pt attempt prevention) while maintaining rim protection (#19 2pt% against). Greatest strength on offense is rebounding. We are 100% drawing them in the 1st round if we don't move up to the 1-line.
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There are a lot of things to freak out about, but I actually think Montana is not one of them. Not because they're not good, but because the NCAA/Committee really likes to limit travel time and cross country trips where possible. Since 08, when we've had a top 4 seed each year and the preferential placement that comes with it we've really only played East Coast teams or teams from the Southeast. In fact, if @DrKlahn does his annual low seed preview, we should probably stay focused most on teams from those regions. Since 08, our first round opponents have been 13 seeds or lower from the following states:

Tennessee
New York
Arkansas
Virginia
Pennsylvania
New York
Georgia
Pennsylvania
North Carolina
Alabama

Save this post to quote when we draw Montana.
 
I've actually been optimistic that Duke will end up with a 1 seed and we don't need to go through that exercise this year. Hope so because the step up in quality from 16 to 15 looks nasty. But it always looks that way before the conference tournaments.
 
Here is the depressing 2018 edition of Overseeded/Underseeded, heading into the bulk of the conference tournaments.

For those unaware, Kenpom is a good proxy for how Vegas/the betting public would assess the teams and is therefore a convenient all-encompassing predictive ranking to use for this. The Selection Committee rightly needs to weigh season achievement more than they speculate on future results, so a team that wins 90% of their games by beating mediocre teams by 1 point (let's call them "Team X") will generally be seeded much higher than a team that wins half their games by 30 points and loses half their games by 1 point against similar competition (let's call them "Team Maize"). The seeding would arguably be proper, but Team Maize would be favored over Team X on a neutral court. This is what we mean by overseeded/underseeded.

(Current consensus seed line, Team, Current Kenpom ranking)

Overseeded (by 2+ seed lines)

1 Xavier 15
1 Kansas 12
3 Wichita State 17
4 Arizona 26
7 Rhode Island 47
7 Arkansas 37
7 Miami 36
10 St. Bonaventure 63

Underseeded (by 2+ seed lines)

3 Cincinnati 4
5 Gonzaga 8
5 Michigan 9
9 Butler 25
10 St. Mary’s 25
 
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Will be interesting to see if the rust affects the Big Ten teams. It has seemed to be a detriment in baseball, where one team often has a long delay before starting the World Series, but baseball is as muscle memory-dependent as it gets. The NBA is so talent-dependent at the highest level that soft factors don’t seem to matter as much. Bye weeks are generally considered positives in the NFL, but with the physical damage and recovery, the NFL is a different animal.
 
I think if Michigan beats Purdue and Kansas doesn't win the BIG 12 Tournament that we would just have to beat ND or Virginia Tech to secure a #1 seed. The problem in all of this largely Xavier. They have the resume of a 1 seed, but when you look at KP is a team to pick for a 1st weekend loss. They are 15th in KP, will be overseeded, and have the 73rd defense. Xavier has been pretty lucky this year as well. They had a 3 game stretch in which they won 2 games in OT and in the third game beat Creighton on the road by 1 point. They were brutally murdered by Villanova both times the two teams played.

If KU and Purdue both lose and don't want their conference tournaments, I think Duke gets a 1 seed with a first round ACCT win. If both of those teams win, and Duke advances to the ACCT Final but say loses to UVA, I still don't see how Duke is kept off the 1 line.

I also wonder how much recency bias will come into play when seeding the NCAA Tournament in regards to the Big 10. They will not have played the entire week when the other conference tournaments will be dominating the headlines.
 
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