Well, I am horribly behind schedule. I had all these naive thoughts of coming up with this really cool stats-based website with all the information that the committee has at their fingertips. And then, I totally struggled amongst by biases vs. what the statistical information said.

Since it is running late, I am going to at least get the seeds out there – and then after all the dust has settled, I will clean up the bracketology site. But if I wait, then no one will know that these picks came out before the actual selection – which makes no sense.

1 – Duke, Arizona, Michigan, Florida

2 – Houston, UConn, Iowa State, Purdue

3 – Michigan State, Illinois, Virginia, St. John’s

4 – Gonzaga, Arkansas, Nebraska, Alabama

5 – Kansas, Vanderbilt, Wisconsin, Texas Tech

6 – Tennessee, North Carolina, Louisville, BYU

7 – St. Mary’s, Miami (FL), Kentucky, UCLA

8 – Villanova, Ohio State, Clemson, Georgia

9 – TCU, Texas A&M, Utah State, Iowa

10 – St. Louis, UCF, Missouri, Santa Clara

11 – VCU, South Florida, Texas/NC State, Miami(OH)/San Diego State

12 – McNeese, Akron, Northern Iowa, High Point

13 – Hawaii, Hofstra, California Baptist, North Dakota State

14 – Troy, Wright State, Penn, Kennesaw State

15 – Furman, Idaho, Tennessee State, UMBC

16 – Siena, Queens, LIU/Howard, Lehigh/Prairie View

First Four Out – Oklahoma, Indiana, Seton Hall, Auburn

Second Four Out – Cal, Stanford, SMU, New Mexico

I had several places where my biases might get me but I am going to go with it.

• I bumped Purdue up from a 3 seed to a 2 seed (at the expense of Michigan State) thanks to their huge 80-72 victory over #3 Michigan in the Big 10 tournament championship.
• The polls and the statistics suggest St. John’s should be further back – but I bumped them up to a 3 seed because of the fact that they won both the regular season championship as well as the huge 72-52 victory against #6 UConn in the Big East tournament championship.
• I moved Arkansas into the 4 seeds thanks to their victory in the SEC championship. I originally wanted to put Vanderbilt there because of their win against Florida, but I couldn’t put the Commodores over both Arkansas and Alabama who finished 2 games ahead in the standings.
• I am horrible at seeding the middle of the bracket – that will probably continue.
• I could not keep Miami (OH) out of the tournament because of a 4 point loss in the MAC tournament after a 31-0 regular season.

My last three teams came down to San Diego State, Oklahoma and Indiana.

• Indiana might have had the best season and they had no losses outside of Quad 1 or 2 teams.
• Oklahoma might have been the best of these teams in the last couple of weeks as they have been on a tear. But they also went 7-11 in the conference before having a great SEC conference tournament. The committee has tended to weigh the regular season more than a great conference tournament.
• That left me with San Diego State – they did have one bad loss at Colorado State (Quad 3), but they also finished 2nd in the Mountain West and backed that up by getting to the conference tournament final. The Mountain West tends to get more teams, and so I thought having a 2nd team made the most sense over a struggling power conference team.
• I feel the Big East gets a bad break. Seton Hall is a competitive team. But their only Quad 1 victory was against NC State – and they had 4 losses against Creighton, Butler and two to DePaul. It isn’t the worst thing to lose a couple unexpected road games in your conference – but then you have to beat one of the top teams and the Pirates did not do that.
• Auburn had the best NET / WAB rankings of all these teams, but I could not put a 17-16 team in the tournament. The committee has never done that before, and so if I am predicting what they will do, I have to predict they stay consistent to the principle.
• I was not sure what to do with SMU – they have an injury to one of their star players, and he might be able to recover and be back next week for the tournament. But they lost 5 of their last 6 games and their statistics fell to the point that they would no longer be in the running based on those numbers. Since I don’t have a way to recalculate the NET based on injuries – I can’t tell where they would fall.

I am so excited that Purdue has won the Big 10 championship over Michigan. I am so excited that the tournament field is going to be announced in 10 minutes. I am so excited!!!!