I have done a lot of my bubble
and discussion in the blog this year – so all that is really needed at
this point is to announce the bracket.
If I have time to ramble, I will add a few of my thoughts.
One note – thanks to upsets
in the late games (and the need for me to pick up dinner for the kids after
swimming practice), there are some geographic / conference rules that have been
broken here – but since I don’t track if I get the region correct,
I decided to simply move the teams around.
Michigan / Houston switch thanks to Houston’s loss and
Michigan’s strong performance in the Big 10 tournament (regardless of the
last 4 minutes), and Cincinnati moves up a seed line to a 6 seed –
bumping Louisville to a 7 seed. Now
to see if North Carolina goes up to a 1 seed……..
Wow – Michigan State just
came back from at least 13 down in the first half to beat the Wolverines for
the third time this season. I
think that they have earned a #1 seed – while I suspect UNC is better
than Gonzaga from a profile perspective, I am going to give Gonzaga the last #1
seed because I do not believe the committee will be comfortable to give 3 ACC
teams a #1 seed. That being said
– I would rate UNC higher.
Another random note – I had
LSU rated ahead of Purdue for the 12th/13th ranking. But I suspect that the Selection
Committee is going to either punish LSU for the scandal going on or simply rank
them lower because they will not have their head coach (which mattered in the
SEC tournament against Florida). We
will see if I am right.
As for the bubble, I think
Indiana gets in because of all their Quadrant 1 wins – I would rather
give a mid-major school like Temple, Memphis or Belmont a chance – but
normally, these last spots go to the big conference school with a few more
large victories – and to that point, Indiana has more of those types of
victories than the rest of the bubble.
|
|
EAST |
SOUTH |
MIDWEST |
WEST |
|
1 |
Duke (ACC) |
Virginia |
Michigan State (BIG 10)*** |
Gonzaga |
|
16 |
North Dakota St (SUMMIT) / NC Central (MEAC) |
Fairleigh Dickinson (NEC)/ Prairie View (SWAC) |
Iona (MAAC) |
Colgate (PATRIOT) |
|
8 |
Iowa |
Seton Hall |
Syracuse |
UCF |
|
9 |
Mississippi |
North Carolina State |
Utah State (MT WEST) |
Washington |
|
5 |
Villanova (BIG EAST) |
Kansas |
Iowa St (BIG 12) |
Virginia Tech |
|
12 |
TCU / Indiana |
Liberty (ATL SUN) |
Murray State (OVC) |
New Mexico State (WAC) |
|
4 |
Auburn (SEC) |
Wisconsin |
Kansas St |
LSU |
|
13 |
Vermont (AM EAST) |
Old Dominion (CONF USA) |
St Louis (ATL 10) |
UC Irvine (BIG WEST) |
|
6 |
Cincinnati (AMERICAN) |
Maryland |
Marquette |
Mississippi State |
|
11 |
Oklahoma /
Arizona St |
Ohio State |
Baylor |
Oregon (PAC 12) |
|
3 |
Houston |
Texas Tech |
Florida St |
Purdue |
|
14 |
Yale (IVY) |
Northeastern (COLONIAL) |
Bradley (MVC) |
Northern Kentucky (HORIZON) |
|
7 |
Louisville |
Wofford (SOUTHERN) |
Buffalo (MAC) |
Nevada |
|
10 |
Minnesota |
VCU |
St. Mary’s (WCC) |
Florida |
|
2 |
Michigan |
Kentucky |
Tennessee |
North Carolina |
|
15 |
Abilene Christian (SOUTHLAND) |
Gardner-Webb (BIG SOUTH) |
Georgia State (SUN BELT) |
Montana (BIG SKY) |
FIRST FOUR OUT – Xavier, St.
John’s, Clemson, Alabama
NEXT FOUR OUT – Creighton, Temple,
Memphis, Belmont
While I have
been regretting this – knowing that I got 3 teams wrong, you have to
still do it. We will compare
against the following 6 media bracketologists again.
It looked like the Sporting News changed their bracketologist
– and since he wasn’t near the top (and I was one of the worse, I
just didn’t include). Somehow
or another, despite as poorly as I did, I still beat the FOX bracketologist by 1 point. But everyone else killed me. Although while it is not up to my
standards from last year, I guess it is not bad that a person who only studied
up for a week got 60 of the 68 teams within one of their seed. Still – a pretty sad showing this
year.
|
LUNATIC |
LUNARDI (ESPN) |
PALM (CBS) |
EVANS (YAHOO) |
BELLER(SI) |
SCHWAB(FOX) |
|
|
Correct in the Field |
65 |
67 |
67 |
67 |
66 |
67 |
|
Correct Seed |
37 |
46 |
44 |
44 |
44 |
34 |
|
Correct +/- 1 Seed |
60 |
64 |
61 |
65 |
63 |
59 |
|
TOTAL |
329 |
357 |
344 |
354 |
349 |
328 |
The Lunatic – master delusional bracketologist