Stomp The Lunatic

As I have mentioned before, this is a lazy attempt to seed things without taking up much time or effort.  I tried to keep close to the poll rankings – the top seeds actually stay pretty close to it – which makes sense – if the 65 AP members and 32 coaches think Kansas is the top team, it is not a far stretch to think the 10 committee member will agree.  I then used some basic schedule rankings to rank the rest.  I will say, the lack of tournaments makes this hard.  For example, I suspect that if Florida State won the ACC tournament, and Baylor did not win the Big 12 tournament, the Seminoles would leap into the final #1 spot.  But that is a lot of ifs for something that didn’t happen…..

So, without further ado, the Lunatic’s preliminary bracket.  Top seed is listed in my ranking order, and then the remaining seeds are in that order (since Kansas is my Midwest region top seed, the Midwest region will always get listed first).  This will be the final one if I give up on finding a more analytical way to do this…..  I have all these pie in the sky goals that likely will give way to more important things.  I might also break some bracketing rules as I am doing this crazy quick…..

1 – Kansas (MW), Gonzaga (W), Dayton (E), Baylor (S)

2 – Michigan St (MW), San Diego St (W), Creighton (E), Florida St (S)

3 – Villanova (MW), Duke (W), Kentucky (E), Maryland (S)

4 – Louisville (MW), Oregon (W), Wisconsin (E), Seton Hall (S)

5 – Ohio St (MW), Auburn (W), West Virgina (E), Virginia (S)

6 – BYU (MW), Iowa (W), Illinois (E), Butler (S)

7 – Houston (MW), LSU (W), Penn State (E), Providence (S)

8 – St Mary’s (MW), Utah State (W), Arizona (E), Michigan (S)

9 – Marquette (MW), Oklahoma (W), Florida (E), UCLA (S)

10 – Cincinnati (MW), USC (W), Rutgers (E), Arizona St (S)

11 – Colorado (MW), Texas Tech vs Wichita St (W), Richmond (E), Mississippi St vs Northern Iowa (S)

12 – Stephen F Austin (MW), New Mexico State (W), Vermont (E), East Tennessee St (S)

13 – Akron (MW), Bradley (W), Yale (E), Liberty (S)

14 – Belmont (MW), North Texas (W), Hofstra (E), Winthrop (S)

15 – Eastern Washington (MW), UC-Irvine (W), Boston Univ (E), Ark-Little Rock (S)

16 – NC Central vs Robert Morris (MW), North Dakota St vs Prairie View (W), Siena (E), Northern Kentucky (S)

 

I am sure that I will probably keep tweaking this.  I feel like with some time (and my normal pouring through team sheets, I can do better.   But this at least has me covered in case the NCAA comes out with a bracket……..

 

So, I need to have something in the case that the NCAA reverses course and releases a bracket.  But here is the thing – since there is not going to be a tournament, I don’t have as much of a desire to sift through team sheets to rank the teams.  What I really want to do is use the next three weeks that I would have poured my heart and soul into college basketball, and spend it to see if I can improve some of my processes.

What if I can come up with an analytical process to simulate the selection committee process?  What if I can clean up my datapull codes so that I don’t have to copy and paste 30 Oral Roberts box scores into my dataset?   What if I can finally build a model to predict the games?  What if I can actually get decent night’s sleep during March? What if I can actually play games with my kids while we are all forced to lock ourselves in our houses to wait for the virus to disappear?  There seem to be so many ways to do this without needing to rush.

Unless of course they announce the bracket today.  Then, I will be sad.  So, I am going to do an extremely lazy job of this – so that I can get a bracket done in the next hour or two.  And then, will continue to refine my rules.

We already locked our pool.  Now, we have to look at the bubble.  I have to still figure out 19 bubble teams.  The easy way to do this is set some logic rules and be done.  For example, I can widdle the field in a couple ways – first, the committee has never selected a team worst than 82nd in the rankings (to my knowledge) – and that team was a small conference school that was ranked in the polls that the RPI just didn’t like.  If you are not in the top 80 of the NET, you are out.  I can also widdle things down by removing teams with less than a .533 winning percentage (according to CBS Jerry Palm – that is the worse record to get an at-large bid).   Sorry, Boilermakers – but you are out.  Surprisingly, this didn’t happen as much as in past years, but you can also remove teams that have 0 Quadrant 1 victories – if you didn’t beat at least someone in the top part of the league, you don’t get in.

But there are still a bunch of teams left.  It seems to me that you should be able to take any major conference team with a conference record that is 3 games over 500.  With so many bubble teams at 9-9 or 10-10 in conference, it seems like a 11-7 team in the same conference should be in.  Welcome to the bracket…..

• LSU
• USC
• Arizona State
• Florida
• Arizona
• Providence
• Mississippi State
• UCLA

Of those teams, the one that worries me is Mississippi State – they only have 2 quadrant 1 wins….  But hey – rules are rules……

Next, the committee tends to give only 4-5 spots to mid-majors, tending to be the best available from each of the conferences that have multiple teams under consideration.   This includes typically a surprise like Temple.  But it also last year had the surprise of Belmont – they rewarded a regular-season champ who lost in their conference tournament.   If I do that for 2020, those teams are:

• Wichita State (American) – in my mind, they had a slightly better profile than Memphis or Tulsa
• Richmond (Atlantic 10) – clearly the best team in the A-10 behind Dayton
• St. Mary’s CA (WCC) – their victory in the WCC tourney over BYU probably was enough
• Northern Iowa (MVC) – the regular season champ who lost their conference tournament

I am a little worried about Northern Iowa – numerically speaking, their profile looks almost identical to Belmont.  But their is one big difference.  Belmont lost to Murray State in their tournament – a team that was also under consideration in 2019.  Northern Iowa lost to Drake, and was actually stumbling their way to the end of the season.  If the tournament was going on, I guarantee this weekend would be a tough weekend for Northern Iowa as they wait to see if their win against Colorado was enough.  But still – rules are rules……

OK – now down to 7 left.  If these all go to the major conferences, I can simply rank those teams by conference and then bring some teams in.  This gives me the following remaining teams:

• Penn State
• Michigan
• Oklahoma
• Marquette
• Rutgers
• Colorado
• Texas Tech

So – I think the Big 10 three are the safest because of all the hype around how strong the conference is.  Oklahoma also feels good based on how they finished the season.  Marquette makes me a little nervous – but they have a top 30 NET ranking – this tends to be a guarantee for a major conference bubble team.  Colorado and Texas Tech also make me a little nervous because they really stumbled down the stretch.  They are in because they were both ranked in the polls until the last few weeks when they started their losing streaks.

This leaves the following teams currently on the outside looking in.  Each of them have some reasons why they could claim they should be in, but also clearly have enough issues that they aren’t in….

I think if I had to rank them – first four out:

• North Carolina State – they seem to be the best of the 11-10 ACC teams if you count their ACC tournament opening round win).
• Indiana – they certainly have some great victories, but 9-11 and being swept by a Purdue team that was eliminated from the bubble might have them on the outside looking in
• Arkansas – this one is the one I am actually most unsure of – if the committee considers the injury, this is another story.  But the numbers without that show an 8-11 SEC team.  Not having the quarterfinals of the SEC tournament impacts this team the hardest – they really needed one more big win.
• Stanford – highest NET team left on the bubble (33) but 9-10 in the Pac 12 thanks to the early exit in the first round of the Pac 12 tournament probably isn’t enough.

Others that were left that didn’t fail one of my other rules (in order by NET ranking):

• Xavier
• Notre Dame
• Rhode Island
• Memphis
• Tennessee
• Oklahoma State
• South Carolina
• Texas

So – there you go, now to see if I can quickly rank my 68 teams so that I can play with analytics or simply relax the rest of the afternoon…….

So, I get this is a totally pointless exercise.  But I have nothing else to rant and rave about.  So, why not work on my bracketology.  I will probably continue to refine this as the week goes on.   I am thinking that I will come up with a quick estimate over the weekend, and continue to refine my choices based on more educated decisions.

Remember this exercise is meant to predict who the selection committee would pick – not who I think should play in the tournament.  I probably would have a few more rules in place.  For example, I always had the belief that if you don’t finish your season with at least a non-losing record, you should not be in the tournament.  Sure, a team like Purdue or Indiana might have a high enough NET ranking to make the tournament.  But if you went 9-11 in your conference and are the 10th and 11th seed from that conference, you have not earned a bid.  All the major conferences have tough schedules – shouldn’t I lean towards taking Arizona State who went 11-7 in the Pac 12, or South Carolina who went 10-8 in the SEC.  Or why not reward a small conference team like Northern Iowa who won their conference title, beat a team that likely is in the field on the road (Colorado) during non-conference play, but got upset in their tournament.

This year, there were 43 teams that went 50% or better in what I consider the 6 power conferences (ACC, Big East, Big 10, Big 12, Pac 12, and SEC).  If you give 6 of them the automatic bids, that means you would still not have enough at-large spots to give all these teams an invite.  And if I give all these teams the spots, I have no room for a ranked school like BYU who had a great season in a small conference.  So, why would a team with a losing record in conference deserve a spot over any of those teams.

But that is not how the committee works – a team can make up for a bad conference record if they dominated their non-conference schedule.  It actually also helps out when evaluating teams that had injuries like Arkansas, who went 7-11 in conference because of the 5 game losing streak without their 2nd leading scorer.  It also helps out with evaluating conferences with non-balanced schedule (Indiana had to play the three Big 10 co-champs 5 times, while Michigan only had to play them 4 times – would their records have been reversed if they had each other’s schedule).  So, strict rules manage to force the committee not to make exceptions.  I am torn on this, but I can understand it.

So, lets determine the bubble size and who doesn’t have to worry about the bubble.

It is important to understand the Selection Committee process.  The process starts by each of the 10 members picking the 36 teams they think should be in the tournament do matter what – and any team on 8 of the ballots is put into the field, while anyone with 3 ballots get put into the “under consideration” list.  In my mind, this “under consideration” list is the bubble.

Out of curiosity, I wanted to see if I could use the computers and polls to create my own committee.  I looked at this to see how it would do on last year’s bracket, and found some interesting results.  Using this to predict the bubble eventually fails – the committee eventually picks differently from the computers (otherwise, teams like 63rd ranked Arizona State or 73rd ranked St. John’s don’t get the last two at-large bids).  However, it does have an interesting result.

I looked at the NET ranking, the old RPI, the 5 computer rankings on the team sheets (KPI, SOR, BPI, Pomeroy and Sagarin), the AP poll and the Coaches poll and figured out which teams were in the top 36 of each of the 9 rankings.  There were 28 teams that managed to be agreed upon by all 9 rankings (which in retrospect, is actually a lot – would have expected the rankings to disagree on at least a couple teams here and there…..)  Anyways, in could be just a coincidence – and is totally a small sample size for observation (since I don’t know that I want to go back and do this for multiple years).  But those 28 teams were the top 28 seeds in the tournament.  That is right – if you were in this list, you were one of the top 7 seeds in a region, and if you were a team that missed on a couple lists (for example, VCU or Utah St that made 6 of the 9) were 8th or worse.

Kind of makes sense – it all the computers and all the polls agree they are one of the top 36 teams, they should be one of the top 36 teams.  But I think it is interesting that the committee didn’t have a single team break into the list.  If they didn’t think that NET ranked 33 team NC State was one of the 36 at-large teams, I would have thought that at least one team would break into these top 28….

There is another piece of bracket predicting facts that probably ties to this a little.  I only remember two teams in history (Utah St in 2004 and SMU in 2014) that were in the top 25 of the polls in the last week and did not get an at-large bid.  As you can see, both of these schools are from small conferences and were upset in their conference tournaments (by teams the committee obviously felt were not tournament-worthy).

So – lets apply our rules to the 2020 bracket.  This year, the first lock (the 9 rankings in the top 36) didn’t agree – makes sense.  Nothing is going to be easy about 2020.  But there are still 21 teams – they will start our locks (in order of NET ranking)…..

• Gonzaga – WCC auto-bid
• Kansas – projected Big 12 auto-bid
• Dayton – projected Atl 10 auto-bid
• San Diego State
• Baylor
• Duke
• Michigan State
• Louisville
• BYU
• Florida State – projected ACC auto-bid
• Creighton – projected Big East auto-bid
• Oregon – projected Pac 12 auto-bid
• Villanova
• Seton Hall
• West Virginia
• Maryland
• Butler
• Houston
• Kentucky – projected SEC auto-bid
• Wisconsin – projected Big 10 auto-bid
• Auburn
• Ohio State (honorary mention 22nd team) – they were on all but the RPI list (37), and since the committee says they don’t use RPI any more, it is hard to say that they would notice this discrepancy…….

The AP/Coaches Poll Rule also suggests that Virginia, Illinois and Iowa are safe – as the remaining top 25 teams that were left out.  OK – so 25 locks with 17 needing an at-large bid.

There are also all the auto-bids, the way I did this was taking the top remaining seed in each of the conference tournaments (or the team that won their conference tournament if it happened before the madness begun).

So, right now, the bubble is big – still another 19 teams to select……

Supposedly, there was a potential plan that got squashed somewhat by the Selection Committee to identify the top 16 teams and have a 5 day tournament in Atlanta (closed to the fans) to determine an NCAA champion.

I am glad that they didn’t do this for many reasons.  But here is the easiest.  Lets take a team like Houston.  Houston is ranked 22nd in the AP poll and 24th in the Coaches poll and was regular season co-champions of the American Conference.  This plan would have left the Cougars out of the tournament.  They did everything that they can to prove that they deserve a chance to play for the title, and yet, they would be watching this 5 day tournament from the TV.

Part of what makes the NCAA Tournament so great is because all the conference champions earn a chance to play for the overall title.  It would have been nice to have a champion – but this doesn’t feel like the way to do it.  It would have left out so many of the teams that make the tournament awesome.

Glad they had the sense not to do this.

That is right – we have a winner before the contest even begins.   The coronovirus has won.

And we all have lost.

The NCAA has officially cancelled the 2020 Men’s NCAA Championship (along with a lot more sporting events).  And if there is no men’s NCAA championship tournament, there is no Stomp the Lunatic Contest!

The Lunatic is extremely sad.  It might be true that he no longer has to worry about sleep deprivation, or how he would find the time to come up with his bracketology in three more nights, or how he could fix his codes that read the box scores to automatically add the NET rankings (or maybe figure out why it couldn’t read Oral Roberts box scores).

But the Lunatic looks forward to this opportunity to celebrate this amazing tournament every year.  And it is gone before it even begun.  I guess there is a silver lining that I don’t have to be sad of watching the tournament go without my Boilermakers – who were likely heading to the NIT.  Now, I can live with the imaginary belief that they were going to beat Ohio State and Michigan State over the next couple of days and end up winning a game in Dayton as one of the First 4 games……….

I might have to do pointless blogging for a few weeks.  Maybe I slowly finish my bracketology – I can’t do worse than the media this year.  Maybe I will find my old college basketball video game and simulate the tournament so that I have something to blog about.  Maybe I will rant about how all the coaches who cheated in the FBI scandal should be kicked out of basketball.

I hope that everyone stays safe and healthy through the pandemic, and that everyone returns next year, when the Lunatic will return in an attempt to prove that he can predict college basketball better than anyone and will not be stomped again.  Because at the moment, despite not losing to many of you in the pool like I normally do, I feel like I have been stomped harder than I ever had in the 20+ years of running this contest.

The Lunatic has been thoroughly stomped.

ps – As I read this to my wife and daughter, Katie said, “YES!!!! Now I don’t have to give up the TV for three weeks!!!!”    So, it looks like 3 weeks of watching the Greenhouse Academy on Netflix – as I said, I have been thoroughly stomped.

Must keep going on.  So far behind.  I don’t know which bubble teams have the most critical games.  I don’t know if there will be any games.  I just don’t know.  🙂

The truth is Thursday is a great day of basketball.  This is the 1st round / quarterfinals of most major conference’s tournaments.  So, everyone on the bubble is playing with one more chance to prove they belong in the tournament.  Or maybe even run the weekend and earn their conference’s championship.  I could name 20-30 games, but I will try to be selective……  You won’t go wrong with any of the games.

The elephant in the room – watch the news.  I have seen an article in USA Today about how the NCAA should cancel the tournament.  And there is this twitter tweet from Rod Gilmore of ESPN – ‘No way the NCAA can go forward with March Madness.  How can “amateurs” play when the NBA pros have shut down?  Can you imagine if a college  player gets sick?’  The NCAA certainly doesn’t make its decisions based on one media member’s opinion.  But the pressure is going to ramp up – we will see where it goes.

Noon – Creighton vs. St. John’s.  Obviously Creighton is safely in the tournament as one of the Big East co-champs.  But their second leading scorer Marcus Zegarowski injured his knee.  While Creighton is hoping he will be back in time for the tournament, this is a chance to see how Creighton plays without him.

Noon – Michigan vs Rutgers.  8/9 game in the Big 10.  Both teams on the bubble but both teams likely in.  Should be a fun game.

Noon – VCU vs UMass.   Local Richmond bias – have to support the local schools.

12:30 pm – Texas Tech vs Texas.  This Big 12 match is really a true bubble game.  Texas probably needs the game a little more, but Texas Tech has been on a losing streak – not the best way to impress the committee.  These teams will likely both be playing as their season is on the line – because it is…..

2:30 pm – Duke vs NC State – chance to see one of the top 10 teams in the country (according to the polls).  But more importantly, it is a chance to see if the ACC will find a 5th team to break out and make a charge for the tournament.  NC State might have the best chance of the three 10-10 ACC teams on the bubble.  And the last time they played Duke, they kept it interesting for the first half before Duke went on a run.  Big game for the Wolfpack.

2:30 pm – Butler vs Providence – I might just leave the TV on the Big East tournament.  Such great matchups…..   Providence has roared its way onto the bubble.  They might be safely in, but can they get one more top 25 win on their resume against Butler.

5:30 pm – Arizona vs USC – This should be a really good game in the Pac 12.  Arizona has an incredible NET ranking but has been stumbling down the stretch.  USC is one of the many Pac 12 bubble teams, but has the talent to make a run in the Pac 12 championship.   Should be a really good game out west.

6:30 pm – Ohio State vs. Purdue.  Lunatic bias here.  I will be watching my Boilers.  But to be honest, this should be a great game.  Purdue is a great defensive team – and has the knack to keep every game close.  Ohio State is the 19th ranked team according to AP, and is an extremely talented team.  Should be a great game.

7 pm – Virginia vs Notre Dame.  A lot of RVA folks will be rooting for the Cavaliers.  Notre Dame looking to make a case for a bid.  And Virginia’s strength is defense – which sometimes leads to close games……

8:55 pm – Indiana vs Penn State.   The Hoosiers really need this game to boost their resume.  Penn State should be safely in, but lost over the weekend to Northwestern (I think they had suspended one of their starters).  Not sure what the situation for them is today if they are at full strength.  Obviously also interesting since with the game being in Indianapolis, the Hoosiers would have had a little bit of a home court advantage – if there were any fans allowed in the stadium

9 pm – Syracuse vs. Louisville.  The last of the three ACC bubble teams vs a team many believe might still be able to make a Final Four type run.  Should be a really good game with a lot on the line for Syracuse.

9 pm – West Virginia vs Oklahoma.  I suspect both of these teams are in.  West Virginia is ranked – so they are playing for seed (and to win a league championship).  Oklahoma is on the bubble.  I suspect they have done enough, but it would be great to get another victory against WV to boost their case for a ticket to the dance.

9 pm – Arkansas vs South Carolina.  True bubble matchup in the SEC.  Both teams might need a win to make their case into the tournament.  Not sure if either team is safe, but because of Arkansas’ losing streak when their second leading scorer was out, the Razorbacks probably need this game a little more….

9:30 pm – Marquette vs Seton Hall.  Did I mention just leave the TV on the Big East tournament.  I suspect both teams are in, but Marquette would love to have another top 25 victory.  Seton Hall will be trying to defend their co-championship in the regular season.

11:30 pm – Arizona State vs. Washington State.  This one makes it on the list in case you are up this late…… Arizona State is probably in but would like to not leave any questions in the committee’s mind…..

 

Enjoy the games!!!

I don’t think I am going to make much ground on the bubble tonight.  Newest breaking news is that the NBA has suspended its season until further notice after Utah Jazz’s Rudy Gobert tested positive for the coronavirus.

So the NBA is now completely stopping their games – according to the brief ESPN article, the NBA says it will use this hiatus to determine next steps for moving forward in regard to the coronavirus pandemic.

Are we going to even have a NCAA Tournament?  Will the NCAA follow suit, and we end up having May Madness when everyone feels safe to start up again?   Will we ever feel safe again?   Will I ever get the looking at rankings?   So distracted…….