MOCK COMMITTEE RECAP
A tremendous annual experience is to participate in Mock Selection Committees. Understanding selection committee dynamics is ridiculously difficult and likely impossible without ever being in one. The process, policies, and procedures are available as public info and one can digest that and build a bracket accordingly. However, the way selections are made doesn’t work that simply for the committee and it is why some people struggle with being accurate on the final bracket.
For the third year, we joined together to do this with Stadium’s Tim Krueger. Tim is based in Omaha and also participates in Creighton Media work. So we all took a break on Saturday to attend Marquette-Creighton. Of course, the Golden Eagles were playing without Tyler Kolek and Oso, but they made it a good game as you likely saw. Other than that, we were in the room for around 20 hours from Friday to Sunday at Let It Fly sports bar in downtown Omaha. The place was outstanding as we overlooked a packed sports bar watching games all weekend long.
The initial key result came on Friday with Dayton falling to Loyola-Chicago and we were off to the races with needing to re-evaluate our thoughts on teams. Saturday, brought a ton of results - headlined by Tennessee’s marquee road win at Alabama and Gonzaga’s emphatic victory at Saint Mary’s. In the end, those two games gave us a new 1-seed in the West and a big-brand national team that took four months to get away from the bubble, but finally played its way well into the field.
Sunday was the final day and a reassessment of all 16-seed lines. After doing these over Zoom for several years now, I have to say that being in person is such a helpful difference. I was in a marathon in there with these fine gentlemen, and you gain an appreciation for the process by being there together.
When you read my projections here, I am making every decision with a committee discussion playing out in my mind on each team and when teams are being compared in a group. Without that ability, there is no way to make clear decisions in this great art and science recurring project. So, bear in mind that the forecast is based on a full evaluation of what I believe the NCAA Committee is discussing and valuing and not my personal opinion.
I do not recommend wasting 18-20 hours of your time on it, however, you’ll find the YouTube videos from all of the Mock Committee meetings this past weekend in Omaha right here below. We appreciate all of the donations. The goal is to make this bigger and better every year. The ability to do it in person as a group is paramount:
https://www.youtube.com/@mockselectioncommittee
TODAY’S FORECAST - BRACKETING REVIEW
To switch things up today, bracketing is going to take center stage. It is oftentimes where you will see someone struggle to build an acceptable bracket based on the many rules in play. We will use today’s bracket to call out a few noteworthy items.
1-seeds are pretty straightforward forward with Purdue, Houston, and UConn all being sent to their preferred destinations and Tennessee gets the remaining region- West.
2-seeds (which now includes Baylor today) were fairly simple with Arizona and UNC still getting their close-to-home preference. Marquette headed to the South to avoid being with Purdue and Baylor joined the Boilers in the Midwest
Things became interesting on the 3-seed line. Creighton is our last 3-seed today and preferred Salt Lake City. However, the teams above them (Kansas, Iowa State, Duke) all took sites (Omaha x2 and Pittsburgh) that play on Thursday/Saturday. With the 11-seed line needing room for a play-in game, it was required to have at minimum one Friday/Sunday location here. Thus, Spokane was closer to Creighton than Brooklyn (the only choice left), and the Jays were sent to Spokane instead of SLC by necessity.
Alabama to Pittsburgh and Kentucky to Brooklyn were fairly simple location assignments. Illinois benefited somewhat from the 3-seed crisis and will play in Salt Lake City instead of Spokane.
5-seeds include BYU and that always invites more rules due to the Cougars not being able to play Sunday games. The Cougar community is praying for a Salt Lake City assignment and they have only SLC or Pittsburgh that they will be sent to, so long that the Cougars remain a 5-seed. It did not work out today because the SEC has multiple fours and fives, which meant South Carolina had to go into the West Region.
The 6-seed line was straightforward. Dayton got their preferred Pittsburgh assignment despite being the bottom-ranked team in this group.
The 7-seed line was a glorious one for Utah State, who will stay home in Salt Lake City. Florida got its preferred destination of Charlotte. Gonzaga/Nevada got the leftovers.
The 8-seed and 9-seed line continues to produce an overload of Big 12 teams combined with a 1-seed Houston in the second round. Oklahoma only played Houston one time thus far and is one of the safe choices to use in this scenario for the South Region. Texas and UConn met earlier this year, but by the time it came time for the Longhorns to be slotted, there was no other place to go but East. The avoidance of second-round rematches preference is just that, a preference. The good news is that this is the only such example of it occurring throughout the bracket today.
10-seed assignments took care of Nebraska and Virginia as much as possible. Colorado State was sent further to Charlotte due to other MWC teams already in 7-10 matchups.
The 11-seed line includes both of the play-in games. The Villanova/James Madison winner would prefer to stay in the eastern part of the U.S. after Dayton, but due to needing a Friday/Sunday site, the winner would be sent to Spokane here. Princeton was able to take the Pittsburgh assignment instead of Michigan State because the committee will look to avoid second-round rematches from the schedule if at all possible, and of course Michigan State already faced Duke this season. That sent the Spartans to Omaha.
The 12-seed line got interesting because the bracketing is looking for Grand Canyon to avoid matchups in the first two rounds against both San Diego State and South Carolina. So the Lopes were shipped to Pittsburgh.
The 13-seed line was pretty flexible. Appalachian State is relatively traveling similar distances to Pittsburgh or Brooklyn as the strongest ranked 13-seed. The Mountaineers were sent to Brooklyn to avoid a matchup with the strongest of the 4-seeds (Alabama).
14-seeds were even more of a no-brainer for slotting. Oakland was sent the furthest (to Spokane), due to being the last-ranked team of the four options.
Eastern Washington has already played Arizona, so the Eagles were sent to Indianapolis to face Marquette. And a fun fact is that Sam Houston is closer to Charlotte than it is to Salt Lake City.
16-seeds all went in order. Quinnipiac is the highest rated and lucked out by staying in an eastern pod against Tennessee.
BRACKET
Bracket projections are based on the 2023-24 NCAA Committee Principles and Selection Process. Projected Conference Champions are based on which team has the inside track to the top seed within its conference tournament.
Forecasted At-Large Bids Stolen: 2: AAC (South Florida), A-10 (Richmond). The Annual Average = 2.3 Bids taken per year.
FIRST FOUR OUT: Iowa, New Mexico, St. John's, Memphis
NEXT TEAMS OUT: Providence, Colorado, Wake Forest, Kansas State
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