INTRO
Welcome officially to the 2024 Bracket Forecasting season!
The atmosphere, the lights, the freezing temperatures, upstart programs from coast-to-coast, Michigan State and Gonzaga going through rough patches- our collective College Hoops season has now hit past the mid-way point. Time evaporated quickly since November 6th and these next eight weeks will especially go by fast. Let us savor every moment we can in 2024. And yes, it is finally time to get bracket forecasts together and organize all of the same information that is available to the Selection Committee. If you are new to Bracketeer.Org, this site is dedicated to learning, teaching, and anticipating all topics related to the NCAA Tournament selection process. Although a ton of history is researched, the understanding is that things will constantly evolve and the committee members will change slightly year over year. This makes the “Bracketology” exercise a difficult one in some respects. It truly is art and science to try to envision what a room full of 12 Presidents and ADs are likely looking at and discussing. I’ll do everything and anything to bring you the most thorough and educational experience from here until Selection Sunday. My main promise is this will be a lot of fun!
For me, a complete reset was paramount to this process. I have been covering games coast-to-coast for the past ten or more weeks, but that doesn’t allow me the opportunity to take a bird’s eye view of what is going on across the landscape of college basketball. A fresh set of eyes on over 120 different NCAA Tournament hopefuls was needed, and it took all week to do it right. That work went into today’s forecast and began to explain why it took me over a week to build. Not all leagues and team profiles are created equal. The Mountain West has an unbelievable six teams in the field as an example, but the WCC has just one. Other teams like Princeton and Indiana State have very little margin for error and limited chances overall to impress. The storylines have been brewing early here in 23-24, join along for the ride!
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Before diving into the bracket forecast, I wanted to invite you to join along in a few Bracketology-themed shows and activities happening over the next six weeks or so. If you enjoy the work on this site, you will likely enjoy some deeper bracket talk coming too.
Fielding the 68 Show by FIELD of 68.- Every Monday and Friday. I will be on this Monday for the debut episode and will be on at least once each week. We will ramp up episodes when we get near March. A composite bracket between the four/five bracketologists will be posted on @TheFieldof68 Twitter’s feed each day we have a show, which hopefully gives the audience more of a committee vibe.
Hoops HD - For the diehards. HoopsHD will once again hold a Mock Selection Committee that I will participate in this March. Additionally, the host Chad Sherwood holds a bracket rundown show every Thursday for the next several weeks. In fact, it has already started and I plan to join next week. Be sure to Subscribe to Chad’s YouTube channel and I have linked last Thursday’s episode.
CBB Mock Selection Committee - Coming soon! This is the third year partnering with Stadium’s Tim Krueger and well-known Bracketologists Dave Ommen of Bracketville, Brad Wachtel of Facts & Bracks, Kerry Miller of Bleacher Report, and Shelby Mast of the USA Today. It is an educational experience for College Hoops lovers and all people in the CBB industry. This year, we are planning to meet in person during the first week of March to hold committee-style meetings. Should be a tremendous learning experience for everyone tuning in that weekend- March 1-3.
TOP SEEDS
Allow us to dive in, please join:
The four top seeds became fairly clear with the emergence of North Carolina in recent weeks. The Heels have earned its way onto the top line with three elite-level wins, headlined by the road victory at Clemson. UNC is also in control of the ACC standings with a perfect 6-0 start. The four top seeds in order are Purdue, UConn, Houston, and UNC. Purdue and UConn have fairly obvious credentials to be the top two on the board. The Boilermakers have seven wins today over projected tournament teams, with four of those coming against forecasted “protected seeds’ in Marquette, Alabama, Arizona, and Tennessee. That makes the choice clear over UConn, who has upwards of five such wins. UConn does have a win over North Carolina which has of course aged significantly well. As for Houston, the Cougars have lost two tight road games, but have otherwise dominated. They rank first in nearly every performance metric available to the committee and have a cluster of quality wins in hand. Just too much juice here to leave them off the one-seed line when compared to any other candidate.
The Dayton Flyers have a top-six resume in the country. That may be hard to digest for those folks who only watch Power Conference games and pay attention to polls. For the record- I do neither of those things really, and this fresh set of eyes sees that Dayton’s road win at SMU combined with good wins over St. John’s and Cincinnati matter. Also, the dominant 11-2 record against non-Q4 teams is tied for the second most in the nation. Until the Flyers slip at some point, they belong up here.
Rounding out the top 16 was tough earlier this week. But with Memphis taking a stunning home loss on Thursday and Clemson doing the same on Tuesday, it was pretty easy to include Kentucky and Creighton. Kentucky has massive potential, but also has to live with the home loss to UNC Wilmington and just one win thus far against an established heavyweight in UNC. The Wildcats do have important wins against Mississippi State, Miami, and at Florida but unfortunately, the Sunshine State programs are forecasted NIT teams right at this moment.
MIDDLE SEEDS
Grand Canyon is the team we will focus on for today. At 17-1, the Lopes are making all kinds of noise. GCU only managed to play four total games against the top two quadrants, which adds a significant challenge on where to seed them. In just two Q1 chances, the Lopes won both of them against San Francisco and San Diego State. The lineup they bring to the court is ridiculously talented and a committee would agree they belong from any kind of eye-test perspective. Its only loss was against a South Carolina team that I also have in this field. As it stands, GCU has no reason not to be able to climb as high as the 7-seed line, where they landed today. Lopes will have a lot of tests in the underrated WAC, so the wins have to continue.
Iowa State is the team right below Grand Canyon right now. This is interesting because ISU does have the big home win over Houston, but hasn’t proved much else and struggled in the Orlando tournament. A high NET ranking (11) and overall dominant record keep them in the top half of the bracket, but eventually, the Cyclones need to prove something away from Ames.
BUBBLE
The Bubble exercise took nearly all week. So many teams still in the mix this early in the season. When it was all said and done I had 13 spots available for about 53 interesting teams. As the process narrowed itself down, I landed with a cluster of Big 12 teams in Cincinnati, TCU, and Kansas State. Cincy is living on the road BYU win, but hey that is standing out at this stage of the season. TCU has an ugly 322nd-ranked non-conference schedule, which history says is big trouble should the Frogs land this close to the cutoff area, and Kansas State has a low NET of 69, but otherwise solid resume with more data points than TCU. So there you go, Cincy and K-State have made the cut today, but TCU did not.
Overall, with bid steals represented in both the Ivy League and the American Conference, you could rationally put both TCU and James Madison back in instead. Here at Bracketeer.Org, I will always treat a forecast as if it is the final day of the season, and it also is a great practice to honor the team with the inside track for the regular season trophy in all 32 leagues.
Nebraska owns three wins over projected tournament teams, including a road win at Kansas State, which is a squad in the field. The Huskers are plagued by a 321st-ranked schedule and just a 3-5 record against the top two quadrants. The foundation is there to make the tournament, they will need to keep winning at a high level in the Big Ten to do it.
BRACKET
Bracket projections are based on the 2023-24 NCAA Committee Principles and Selection Process. Projected Conference Champions are based on projected Auto-Bid winners.
Forecasted At-Large Bids Stolen: 2 (Annual Average = 2.2 Bids taken)
FIRST FOUR OUT: TCU, James Madison, Nebraska, Miami
NEXT TEAMS OUT: Washington State, Michigan State, Georgia, NC State
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