Bradley is aiming for a 3-peat at Arch Madness in 2021.
With the endless amount of data available and daily changes in College Basketball’s current climate, the art of Bracketology has now become more of a comprehensive exercise. Putting the preseason bracket together really prepares me for the season, so this has materialized into an overall rewarding effort. In addition, the bracketing exercise itself is a valuable exercise (about 5-7 hours in length per bracket) any time of year. Looking for repeat matchups, following bracketing rules, what happens if BYU makes it and can’t play on Sundays, etc. The popularity of Bracketology increases each year and there is a lot to explore, review, and consider.
In 2021, we face extremely unique circumstances. Teams will likely play uneven amounts of games, have wide-ranging resumes, and some won’t even play a non-conference schedule. The focus for now becomes team strength and ensuring that we are selecting tournament teams who will at least be near .500 or above in conference (mainly a B1G and Big XII problem there).
Why do these Eleven leagues get so many At-large Bids?
The bracket preview brings us to the Multi-Bid conferences. With the power of TV Contracts and Coaching Salaries, the very large majority of control in College Basketball resides within these eleven leagues. That also translates to a lot of bids. In 2019, 35 of 36 At-Large Bids came from these ten conferences. The exception was Belmont, who had a fantastic resume but barely squeezed into the First Four. The inherit advantages for the ten leagues at the top of College Basketball is simple: more opportunities. Until the committee decides to not consider quality wins more important than a quality record, then the built-in advantage for power leagues will always be protected. The NCAA Tournament revenue model provides distribution per conference. For each tournament game in which a conference member participates, that equals one monetary share for the conference. The more shares for the conference, the more the league will be able to reallocate to their conference members. These ten leagues today are steadfast at sending as many members to the NCAA Tournament as possible, motivated not only by success but monetarily.
Tournament Bid Breakdown
Let’s get into these teams who are fighting to get to the dance and eventually Indianapolis in April. After spending months reading, listening, and tracking personnel changes, I’ve put my best guesses for this season together. You will notice that some leagues have a different league champion than the projected Auto-Bid winner. This was done by design, as it is realistic to see this in at least a couple of conferences. No surprise, the Big Ten leads the way with nine projected bids to start the season. The ACC, SEC and Big XII are next with six bids each. Coming off a bounce back season, we have the Pac-12 getting five bids and same for the Big East. The A-10 and AAC each are projected to snag three bids. The WCC and MVC bring in two each. And for now the Mountain West, just has San Diego State dancing - which could easily change down the road, so the MWC belongs in this group of conferences. Hopefully I am wrong overall here and we witness a few quality programs from the other 20 leagues play their way in to an at-large discussion, but this is our starting point.
Without further ado, here is how I see the power conferences shaking out this year. We can all laugh about this together come April:
Look for our complete Bracket posted later today and 1 thru 68 Seed List. Happy Hoops season!