Kansas

Bracketology: March 5

Here is the updated bracket following Saturday’s slate of games. There were a lot of big results for bubble teams on Saturday, with Vanderbilt, Wake Forest, Kansas State, Rhode Island, Syracuse, Marquette, Seton Hall, Providence, and Xavier all picking up big wins. On the other end, Illinois and California suffered losses that could be major setbacks in their hopes of reaching the tournament. All of these results have affected the bracket projection for today.

The other major change to the bracket today is switching Kansas and Villanova. I have now made Kansas the overall #1 seed after having Villanova there the last few editions. This is due to a re-examination of both resumes. Even though Villanova has more top-50 wins, I think the committee is going to have Kansas ahead of Villanova due to their big road win (Baylor, Kentucky, Iowa State, Oklahoma State), and for winning one of the two best leagues in America by 4 games.

Okay, here’s how the bracket projections looks:

The Bracket

bracketmarch5png

Seed List

1 – Kansas, Villanova, North Carolina, Gonzaga
2 – Baylor, Kentucky, Oregon, Louisville
3 – UCLA, Arizona, Butler, Duke
4 – Florida, Florida State, West Virginia, Purdue
5 – Virginia, Cincinnati, Notre Dame, Purdue
6 – SMU, St. Mary’s, Iowa State, Oklahoma State
7 – Creighton, Dayton, Maryland, Wisconsin
8 – South Carolina, Miami (FL), VCU, Virginia Tech
9 – Arkansas, Wichita State, Michigan State, Michigan
10 – Middle Tennessee, Northwestern, Seton Hall, Marquette
11 – Providence, Xavier, Syracuse, USC, Rhode Island
12 – Wake Forest, Vanderbilt, UNC Wilmington, Nevada, Vermont
13 – Monmouth, UT Arlington, Princeton, Akron
14 – East Tennessee State, Bucknell, Winthrop, Florida Gulf Coast
15 – CSU Bakersfield, South Dakota, Northern Kentucky, Texas Southern
16 – Jacksonville State, UC Irvine, North Dakota, Mount St. Mary’s, North Carolina Central, New Orleans

Last 4 Byes: Marquette, Providence, Xavier, Syracuse
Last 4 IN: USC, Rhode Island, Wake Forest, Vanderbilt
First 4 OUT: Kansas State, Illinois State, California, Illinois

Bids by Conference

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

Always check out the Bracket Matrix to see how The Nickel Dimer compares to the competition.

BRACKETOLOGY: February 13, 2017

It’s time for the first bracketology in February for the 2017 NCAA Tournament. We are officially hitting the stretch run of the college basketball season, which means we are hitting the prime time for frequent bracketology updates.

This edition is a bit different than most due to the release of the Top 16 by the NCAA Selection Committee on Saturday. My goal with bracketology is not to create a bracket based on what I think it should be or based on my own methodology; I am trying to mimic what I think the committee will do come Selection Sunday. Because of that, the committee provided a great starting point on Saturday with their top 16. Of their top 16, Florida State, Virginia, and Butler all lost this weekend. I don’t think the losses by FSU and Virginia are too damaging to their profiles. I considered dropping Butler a couple of spots, but their resume is still very strong, and a loss to an improving Providence team is not THAT damaging. I kept them on the 4-line. Therefore, my 16 matches the committee’s 16 in today’s bracket.

Here’s today’s bracket projection. A reminder: 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

Seed List

1 – Villanova, Kansas, Baylor, Gonzaga
2 – North Carolina, Florida State, Louisville, Oregon
3 – Arizona, Virginia, Florida, Kentucky
4 – Butler, West Virginia, UCLA, Duke
5 – Purdue, Cincinnati, Creighton, Wisconsin
6 – Maryland, South Carolina, St. Mary’s, Notre Dame
7 – Xavier, Minnesota, SMU, Northwestern
8 – USC, Dayton, Iowa State, Oklahoma State
9 – VCU, Michigan State, Wichita State, Miami (FL)
10 – Kansas State, TCU, Virginia Tech, California
11 – Syracuse, Middle Tennessee, Seton Hall, Marquette, Arkansas
12 – Michigan, Wake Forest, UNC Wilmington, Nevada, Akron
13 – Monmouth, Valparaiso, New Mexico State, Vermont
14 – Princeton, Belmont, UT Arlington, East Tennessee State
15 – Bucknell, Florida Gulf Coast, UNC Asheville, North Dakota State
16 – Texas Southern, Weber State, UC Irvine, New Orleans, North Carolina Central, Mount St. Mary’s

Last 4 Byes: Virginia Tech, California, Syracuse, Seton Hall
Last 4 IN: Marquette, Arkansas, Michigan, Wake Forest
First 4 OUT: Illinois State, Tennessee, Georgia Tech, Rhode Island
Next 4 OUT: Georgetown, Indiana, Houston, Providence

Bids by Conference

ACC: 10
Big 12: 7
Big Ten: 7
Big East: 6
Pac-12: 5
SEC: 4
Atlantic 10: 2
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.

Bracketology – January 31, 2015

Quick post incoming. Here is today’s bracket heading into this weekend’s games. I’m going to have a write-up later today on a couple things that I noticed while building this bracket, as well as some interesting tidbits if this was actually the bracket on Selection Sunday. I will also preview a handful of the biggest games this weekend that will have a major impact on the next bracket release.

For now, here are the links to today’s bracket, as well as the usual seed list, bubble teams, and conference breakdown. (more…)

Bracketology – March 7, 2014

Here’s a Friday morning update on bracketology following this week’s first four days of games. I decided to take a step back when I did today’s bracket and took a fresh look at each of the teams in consideration for the tournament. First of all, this provided some great insight and was quite refreshing to actually dig into each team’s resume from scratch again. In the past handful of updates, I got in the bad habit of reacting far too much to one or two games here, rather than examining the resume of each team as a whole.

I think Twitter and social media is the main influence that makes you think this way. When you hop on Twitter each night, you see quite a few tweets saying that the bubble team that had a big win is now “definitely in”, while a team that was safely in the field that might have dropped two games in a row is now on the bubble or even out. This is an awful way to do a bracket projection, because the committee simply does not operate in this way. There is no proof that a game in March has any more value to the committee than a game in November. Losing three out of four games in late February/early March is no different than having that same stretch at the start of conference play. The complete and total resume is thoroughly looked over by the committee, not the highlights or lowlights that are pointed out on Twitter on a Tuesday night in early March.

Remember that when you look at bracket projections this weekend as you’re watching games, log on to Twitter, and see someone making a reactionary claim that “Team A” is now out of the tournament. It’s not that easy, nor that simple.

Okay, onto the bracket for today. The link to the bracket immediately follows this paragraph. The seed list from 1 to 68 is below, along with Last 4 IN, First 4 OUT, and Next 4 OUT. Bids by conference is further down the page as well. Quick scheduling note, I’m going to be out of town this entire weekend. I should be getting back into town Sunday evening and hope to get a bracket out that night. But if not, there definitely will be one out by late Monday night at the latest.

Bracketology – March 7, 2014 (CLICK HERE)

1 – Arizona, Florida, Wichita State, (more…)

Bracketology – March 3, 2014

It’s about that time, folks. We are officially less than two weeks away from Selection Sunday and being able to stop all this Bracketology nonsense and instead move onto actually filling out the bracket. But until then, the projections must go on.

Also of note, usually on Monday morning, we have our Stock Up/Stock Down report on who helped and hurt themselves in the eyes of the committee in the past week. Due to time constraints and the actual job that I get paid for, that post will go up on Monday night/Tuesday morning instead.

Before we get into the bracketology, let’s take a quick look back. This weekend, 11 teams ranked in the Top 25 went down. You would think this would create a lot of movement in the bracket, but when 11 of the Top 25 teams go down, there’s not always someone there to climb to steal another’s spot. This is exactly the situation with the final number one seed. Syracuse lost handily at Virginia on Saturday. It looked like Kansas was in prime position to swoop in and take their 1-seed. But then the Jayhawks went down on Saturday night in Stillwater against Oklahoma State. So who is the final 1-seed? I’ve still got Syracuse. You could also consider Kansas, Wisconsin, Duke, and Villanova. All five are legitimately in play right now.

Like I’ve always said, which is the case most years, let’s not get too worked up about who gets the little “1” next to their name? It’s an accomplishment, yes, but in all actuality, it means nothing. Yes, a team that is a 1-seed is more likely to make the Final 4 and win the national championship, but that’s not because they have a 1 next to their name. It’s because they’re a very good team. If Louisville of 2013 or Kentucky of 2012 were 2-seeds, would they not have won it all? It’s hard to imagine that being the case. They won because they were terrific teams, and they were 1-seeds for the same reason. They weren’t terrific because they were both 1-seeds. So let’s not fret too much over gets that last spot on the top line. Plus, it’ll likely sort itself out on its own with a week left of regular season action left and another week of conference tournaments. Someone will rise above the rest.

But before then, let’s take a look at our Monday bracket projection. The link to the bracket immediately follows this paragraph. The seed list from 1 to 68 is below, along with Last 4 IN, First 4 OUT, and Next 4 OUT. Bids by conference is below as well.

Bracketology – March 3, 2014 (CLICK HERE)

1 – Arizona, Florida, Wichita State, Syracuse
2 – (more…)