The time has come for the first mid-season bracket update. To provide some additional thoughts for both the seeding and bracketing process for this exercise, I put together a list.
SEEDING
Battle for the fourth #1 seed. - You can make an argument for Villanova, Texas, and Iowa in this spot. I envision it being heavily debated in the committee room, if it had to be decided today. Fortunately we still have seven weeks left of runway ahead. The real dilemma is Villanova missing so much time, the pressure will be on the Wildcats to win games on shorter rest going forward, if they plan on remaining in the top seed discussion. For today, I am sticking with Nova - despite Iowa having more Quad 1 wins. Iowa still lacks the big-time win. Nova has it at Texas. Texas has it at Kansas. Make no mistake, these three are neck and neck with each other.
The Minnesota issue - Going purely off the quadrant tables, the Gophers have a top 15 resume. When you take a close look and understand that all the big wins are at home and they have been a different team on the road, one has to believe that is a red flag to the committee. For today, the Gophers have a 5-seed with the ingredients to shoot up the board, or continue to suffer from a lack of any wins outside of Minneapolis.
Louisville Sinking - The Cardinals took two tough losses at Miami and home to Florida State last week. The Cards have slipped to #37 in NET. A 4-3 record now against the top two quads is unfavorable compared to teams on the 5 or 6-seed lines. Cards hold my last 7-seed today.
Unclear Bubble - As with any January, the bubble is a massive mess right now. We may only have 28 teams that undeniably belong in the field. Our last nine spots belong to Indiana, Florida, San Diego State, North Carolina, Stanford, Utah State, Wichita State and Pittsburgh. These decisions were not simple. You can argue that Pitt and Wichita State have not beat a team yet inside the bubble. I decided to finally take Duke out of the field, they get Pitt later this week. And Utah State’s overall body of work completley depends on San Diego State right now. Since the Aztecs are still in our field, thats enough to include an Aggies team who just swept them. We have another 10-12 teams on the outside looking in that are simply one or two big wins away from replacing the bottom nine that are in. That’s how tight it is currently.
Welcome newcomers - A warm welcome to the Montana State Bobcats, UMBC Retrievers and the Jacksonville Dolphins - who enter the bracket today as fresh conference leaders.
Unbalanced Conference races - Bryant remains in the field. We normally would go with the leader in the loss column, which today is Fairleigh Dickinson for the NEC. FDU is just 1-1 however, so Bryant’s 6-2 win pct. is superior to the Knights at this point. Should FDU rip off a few wins in a row, they would likely become our NEC representative.
BRACKETING
In principle, I followed the stright-forward 1-68 s-curve seeding process. This of course was done while following the conference affiliation rules for the top 4-seed lines and the early round rematch policies. Some of the intriguing matchups that came out of this:
Deep tradition: UCLA vs. Indiana
Battle for Alabama: UAB vs. Alabama
Omoruyi Family Feud: Cliff vs. Eugene (Oregon vs. Rutgers)
Nick Musczynski Special: Belmont vs. Ohio State. Belmont’s star big man grew up in the suburbs of Columbus.
Villanova vs. New Mexico State - if the Aggies can get enough games in I’d imagine they won’t be a #16 seed anymore. This would clearly be a rough 16-seed draw for Nova.
FIRST FOUR TEAMS OUT: Maryland, Marquette, Colorado State, Western Kentucky
NEXT FOUR TEAMS OUT: Duke, Arkansas, VCU, St. Bonaventure
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