In thinking about my picks, I thought it might help to have a cheat sheet of the one-bid conference champions – these are the teams that most of us including the Lunatic know very little about, but we will likely learn more about on Thursday and Friday in the first round games.

Obviously, for full details, you can check out the cheat sheet on the research page. But for those of who want something simpler, here is the Lunatic’s upset rankings.

I classified the teams into 4 groups.

– Teams that have beaten an at large team (High) – I might have also added Drake, NC State, and Oregon into the list – my sleep deprivation is already impacting my old mind.

– Teams that have beaten a top 100 NET team (Medium) – some teams have simply not played a tournament team this year, but they might have beat some NIT eligible teams.

– Teams with close losses to top 100 NET (Low) – lets face it, some of these teams only play a couple teams in this group – so were the games close or not.

– Teams where all games against the top 100 resulted in double digit losses (Surprise)

A few more caveats before we get started

– I will also identify teams that won a share of their regular season title (RS) as well as the tournament bid – there is something to be said for having the best record in your conference and then back it up in the tournament.

– This is only going to investigate based on the bubble team’s schedule – it takes two to tango as they say and sometimes upsets are just as much about the streakiness (or injury situation) of the favorite as it is about the underdog.

– It only looks at the top games. I sadly don’t have time to evaluate the entire schedule. Maybe a team got blown out by a 1 seed, played no one else of relevance and then blew out the other 30 teams on their schedule. As unfair as it is, I am only looking at what they did against tournament caliber (or close) teams.

– 33 of the last 38 champions were 1, 2, or 3 seeds. Only 2 were 4 seeds and none were 5 seeds. I mention this for a reason. It is tons of fun to be able to claim that you picked 15 seed Princeton last year and be excited as they run to the Sweet 16. But in order to do that, it means you have to knock off one of the 12 teams most likely to win the tournament. This post is not saying which 15 seed will win – just the one that has done the best against tournament level teams. So choose a 14, 15 or 16 at your own risk.

12 seeds

– UAB (High) – beat Florida Atlantic by 3 and Drake by 1 (also only lost by 1 to Clemson)

– Grand Canyon (High – RS) – beat San Diego State by 6 (also only loss by 7 to South Carolina)

– James Madison (High) – beat Michigan State by 2

– McNeese (Medium – RS) – beat VCU by 11

13 seeds

– Vermont (Medium – RS- beat other 13 seeds Yale by 1 and Charleston by 9 but lost to Virginia Tech by 22

– Yale (Medium) – beat Princeton by 6 and Cornell twice (but double digit losses to Kansas and Gonzaga)

– Charleston (Medium – RS) – beat St Joseph’s by 7 but double digit losses to FAU and Duquesne

– Samford (Surprise – RS) – Lost to Purdue by 53 and VCU by 10. But the Lunatic will note that you should watch the Kansas injury report – if both their top 2 scorers are out, this gets more interesting.

14 seeds

– Oakland (Medium – RS) – beat Xavier by 2 (and only lost to Drake by 8 and Illinois by 11 but also got crushed by Michigan State and Dayton)

– Akron (Medium) – beat Bradley by 15 and close losses to Utah St (3), UNLV (2) and St Bonaventure (1). I almost listed them first but I gave the edge to Oakland due to the Regular Season championship.

– Colgate (Low – RS) – lost to Syracuse by 4 with double digit losses to Arizona and Illinois

– Morehead St (Low – RS) – lost to Indiana by 1 with 30+ point losses to Purdue and Alabama

15 seeds

– Long Beach St (Medium) – beat USC by 5 and UC-Irvine by 4 (only tourney team was 12 point loss to San Diego State)

– Western Kentucky (Medium) – beat Louisiana Tech by 5. This probably should be low or surprise but the Conf USA champ sneaks in as the 99th NET team, and is the only team the Hilltoppers played (also lost by 6)

– South Dakota State (Low – RS) – lost to UCF by 3 and George Mason by 2

– Saint Peters (Low) – lost to Duquesne by 9 and Seton Hall by 11

16 seeds

– Stetson (Medium) – beat UCF by 3 (and lost to Cincinnati by 8) – really wish they didn’t draw UConn but also very glad they didn’t draw Purdue

– Longwood (Low) – lost to Dayton by 9 and St Bonaventure by 4

– Howard (Low) – lost to Cincinnati by 5 and Yale by 8

– Grambling (Surprise – RS) – lost to 6 tourney teams by double digits with best games being Drake by 12 and Washington State by 18. They were never close but have to give them credit for scheduling against the best.

– Wagner (Surprise) – lost to Seton Hall by 21

– Montana State (Surprise) – lost to Washington by 24

So there you go – if you are trying to learn more about the one-bid champions, that is your quick cheat sheet!!!!

Good luck to everyone with their picks.