Bracket Summary
After 11 days of reflection and no basketball, I finally decided to clean up a final bracketology post for the 2020 season. The season itself had so many great stories happen, from Dayton to San Diego State to Baylor to East Tennessee State, we are left to sit and wonder how this whole thing would have played out. Perhaps in future decades, we will look back on this season with a clearer perspective and more appreciation. In any event, it is time to take a look at the best possible guess on what Selection Sunday may or would have looked like.
First, some updates
Last week, Kansas HC Bill Self revealed that Kansas would have selected to be in the Houston Regional instead of the heavily forecasted Indianapolis Regional. As the projected overall #1 seed, Kansas would have had that luxury. And it makes some logical sense. Many of the teams in Big 10 country, places like Kentucky and Louisville, and even teams like Butler would also prefer to play in Indianapolis. The thinking here from Kansas was, why compete for tickets in Indianapolis against other large fan bases, when we can remain near the Big 12 footprint in Houston and have a lot less competition for ticket share. Thusly, Houston made more sense, percentage-wise, for KU to gain the largest possible home court advantage. This final bracket projection now reflects this choice.
The domino effect from the Kansas decision starts on the 3-seed line. Kentucky was able to conveniently move over to the Indianapolis Region (Baylor is the top seed) and maintain competitive balance within the top 16 teams on the overall seed list, a bracketing requirement. That then meant shifts were required for all of the remaining 3-seeds. Duke shifted to the East, Michigan State shifted to the South, and the final 3-seed Seton Hall was placed in the West.
The next major shift requirement came with BYU. BYU could no longer be part of the same sub-region as Kansas. With those games now in Houston slated for Friday/Sunday, that means BYU will not be able to participate there. BYU is required to play in a Thursday/Saturday regional. The Cougars were ultimately moved to the Indianapilis-based Midwest Region. This caused the other 5-seeds to reshuffle as well with the exception of Ohio State, who remained in the West.
Lines 6-10 had a few additional tweaks. The most noteworthy was Colorado’s loss in the Pac-12 Tournament’s opening round. This caused a drop on the seed list for the Buffaloes, and landed them on the 8-seed line. This allowed Saint Mary’s to move up to a 7-seed.
For the Bubble, Xavier’s loss to DePaul was just enough to knock the Muskateers out of the field entirely. I personally sympothize for any team that had to take the court on that final day (Wednesday, March 11). The news came in rapidly throughout that Wednesday. Several announcements of tournaments moving to no fans and more. By the end of the evening, we knew the NBA had suspended play. Yet, College Basketball carried on late into Wednesday night.
Players and Coaches were tasked with having to play through the adversity. You could visibly see some motivational differences in these games versus what we always are accustomed to seeing during a hard-fought Championship Week. As badly as I want to disregard the results of that day, the fact is I cannot. The games were still played and sanctioned by the NCAA. The results have to be treated as part of the season for the purpose of this exercise. If for any reason the NCAA Tournament was later played after suspension, the committee would’ve a difficult time making this decision, but would have reached the same conclusion. No team was penalized more by playing on this day than Xavier, with their loss that night. It is mostly a moot point now, since the tournament did not happen.Boston University won the Patriot League Tournament Championship Game on Colgate’s home court. That game was played with tremendous energy and had a ton of excitement. Especially considering that it happened on the evening of March 11th as well. Congratulations to the Terriers on winning the Patriot League Tournament trophy, something they will cherish forever.
The AAC Tournament never tipped off. And it left the final bracket in a position to accept Cincinnati as the auto-bid and afforded the AAC to recieve three bids. I believe that if the games did happen and either Houston or Wichita State won the AAC Tournament, the AAC would have concluded as a 2-bid league. Interesting how this season-long bracket forecasting saga for the AAC’s bid totals will never will be resolved.
Bracket projections are based on 2019-20 NCAA Committee Principles and Selection Process. Projected Conference Champions are based on projected Auto-Bid winners.
At-Large Bids Stolen: 1 (Cincinnati)
FIRST FOUR TEAMS OUT: Xavier, Texas, Northern Iowa, Stanford
NEXT FOUR TEAMS OUT: Mississippi State, St. Louis, Memphis, Arkansas
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