Month: November 2016

Bracketology: Edition 1 – November 30, 2016

After a 2015-16 season hiatus, The Nickel Dimer is back! Due to life and work complications, I unfortunately had to take off the 2015-16 season from blogging about college basketball and bracketology. Not so this year, as I’m excited to blog, forecast, and tweet about college basketball all season long.

Let’s kick this off with my first bracket projection for the 2017 NCAA Tournament. I thought this window after Feast Week and all of the holiday tournament but before the end of non-conference play was a good time to drop the initial bracket. This first bracket edition is tough, because it’s an undefined combination of preseason expectations, early season results, and early season analytics (Kenpom, Sagarin, etc.). Because of that, there will be some teams that are seeded higher than their resume would deem worthy.

Think West Virginia and Purdue. Those two squads do not currently have 5-seed resumes as the committee would view it, but based on their talent, advanced metrics, and what we all thought of them preseason, I have them as 5-seeds.

You can think the inverse with Baylor. Will Baylor end up as a 2-seed? I don’t know, I guess they theoretically could. It would surprise me. I’d expect them to fall into that 3-5 seed range. But based on their current resume and the quality of the teams they have beaten, I think they are worthy of a 2-seed.

So I guess you could say I am rewarding teams for having obviously strong resumes thus far, but not punishing teams we all thought would be good if they have not yet had the opportunity that Baylor has had to record quality wins.

Let’s move on to the first bracket projection for the 2016-17 season. Each bracketology edition, I will post the projected bracket with match-ups, pod locations, and all the other things a bracket would have. I will also post the seed list 1-68 as well as the breakdown of bids by conference (for conferences that receive multiple bids). Here we go.

The Bracket

bracketology-nov-30

Seed List

  • 1 – Kentucky, Villanova, North Carolina, Kansas
  • 2 – Duke, Virginia, Baylor, Xavier
  • 3 – Louisville, Gonzaga, Indiana, Creighton
  • 4 – Wisconsin, UCLA, Butler, Iowa State
  • 5 – West Virginia, Florida, Arizona, Purdue
  • 6 – Syracuse, St. Mary’s, Notre Dame, Oregon
  • 7 – South Carolina, Michigan, Wichita State, Cincinnati
  • 8 – Miami (FL), Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Rhode Island
  • 9 – Virginia Tech, USC, Michigan State, VCU
  • 10 – Pittsburgh, Ohio State, Texas A&M, Colorado
  • 11 – Texas Tech, Dayton, Florida State, Seton Hall, SMU, Northwestern
  • 12 – San Diego State, Valparaiso, Chattanooga, UNC Wilmington
  • 13 – Ohio, Princeton, Monmouth, UT-Arlington
  • 14 – UAB, Florida Gulf Coast, Belmont, Lehigh
  • 15 – North Dakota State, UC Irvine, CSU Bakersfield, Winthrop
  • 16 – Vermont, North Dakota, Wagner, North Carolina Central, Texas Southern, Stephen F. Austin
  • Last 4 IN: Florida State, Seton Hall, SMU, Northwestern
  • First 4 OUT: Clemson, California, TCU, Stanford
  • Next 4 OUT: Maryland, Kansas State, Utah, NC State

Bids by Conference

  • ACC: 10
  • Big 12: 7
  • Big Ten: 7
  • Big East: 5
  • Pac-12: 5
  • SEC: 4
  • Atlantic 10: 3
  • American: 2
  • West Coast: 2

This bracket will be added to the Bracket Matrix when the site does its next update. Always check it out to see how The Nickel Dimer compares.