Bracket Talk v1.10

As the regular season has wrapped up, and some conference tournaments are underway, the time for hypothesizing, projecting, wishing, and hoping is over. For the most part, the field is set. Only a few teams remain on the bubble, and while bid stealers lurk, most of the prognosticating is around seeding and matchups.

I’m going to try and update this daily until Selection Sunday, and keep the format straightforward.

Auto-Bid/Conference Tournament Winners (22)

Bids secured (5)

• ASUN - Lipscomb

• Big South - High Point

• MVC - Drake

• OVC - SIU Edwardsville

• Summit - Omaha

Up for grabs tonight (2)

• SoCon - Furman vs Wofford

• Sun Belt - Arkansas State vs Troy

One-bid league title games coming up (15)

• Tuesday

  • CAA

  • Horizon

  • NEC

• Wednesday

  • Big Sky

  • Southland

  • Patriot League

• Saturday

  • America East

  • Big West

  • CUSA

  • MAAC

  • MAC

  • MEAC

  • SWAC

  • WAC

• Sunday

  • Ivy League

At-Large Locks (38)

• A10 (1) - VCU

• ACC (3) - Clemson, Duke, Louisville

• American (1) - Memphis

• Big Ten (8) - Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Michigan State, Oregon, Purdue, UCLA, Wisconsin

• Big 12 (7) - Arizona, BYU, Houston, Iowa State, Kansas, Texas Tech, West Virginia

• Big East (4) - Creighton, Marquette, St. John’s, UConn

• Mountain West (1) - New Mexico

• SEC (11) - Alabama, Auburn, Florida, UGA, Kentucky, Mississippi State, Missouri, Oklahoma, Ole Miss, Tennessee, Texas A&M, Vanderbilt

• WCC (2) - Gonzaga, St. Mary’s

Bid Stealers (1)

Right now, I’m holding space for one bid stealer. I don’t see anyone not already in the field winning the ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, or SEC titles, and there’s likely 22 conference’s guaranteed to only get a single bid, even if their favorite gets upset. That leaves just four other leagues where we could see bid stealers - the A10, the American, the MWC, and the WCC.

• A10 - While VCU is the favorite and should have an NCAAT bid locked up, both George Mason and Dayton have had good years and pose a threat to the Rams. Dayton in particular has 3 Q1 wins, and is a program that is no stranger to making the NCAA Tournament.

• American - Do you trust Memphis? They’ve been the runaway best team in the American, but their quality metrics lag (53rd in the country). The Tigers only lost two conference games this year, but both were “lack of focus” type losses to the 7th and 8th ranked teams in the league. A slip up by Memphis likely opens the door for North Texas or UAB to get a bid.

• Mountain West - Boise State (as discussed below) is scratching at the door of the NCAAT as is. Nobody has been dominant in this league this season, but the Broncos along with Colorado State have showed they’re at most a half step behind the leaders.

• WCC - This seems to be the least likely candidate for a bid stealer, and may be one that gets scratched from the list tonight. St. Mary’s and Gonzaga, both in the field, have won this every year since 2008. Both San Francisco and WCC-Cinderella Pepperdine are alive in the semifinals tonight, though. Should one of those two win two more games, they’ll be dancing and kicking a bubble team to the curb.

The Bubble (7)

With 68 bids for the dance, that leaves seven spots left for teams on the bubble. That number will decrease for every multi-bid conference with a bid stealer (team that wins the conference title, but would not have made it as an at-large). How many teams are left in contention for those spots? By my count, nine.

• Arkansas

• Baylor

• Boise State

• Indiana

• Ohio State

• Oklahoma

• San Diego State

• Utah State

• Xavier

Right now, I have Xavier and Boise State as being outside the field.

While Xavier has the third best quality metrics on the bubble (behind only Baylor and Ohio State, the struggle mightily on the resume, going just 1-8 in Q1 games with an additional two Q2 losses. They hold the 4-seed in the Big East Tournament, and draw Marquette and likely St. John’s in their path to the title game. A win over Marquette would help their resume a ton, and winning two games likely gets them in the field.

Boise State, meanwhile, has the second worst quality metrics in this bubble group. They’re also the only team with a Q4 loss, AND the only team with multiple losses in Q3/Q4. They do have two Q1 wins, but that’s only good enough to get them above Xavier in terms of good wins. The do get the advantage of having two conference foes above them on the bubble, so a good showing in the Mountain West Tournament could provide a double whammy of helping them and hurting Utah State and San Diego State.

The other seven teams have some combination of great wins, no bad losses, and strong metrics, which nudge them into the field.

Nebraska and Texas are also in my First Four Out section, but a large gap exists between them and the rest of the bubble. While Nebraska failed to make the Big 10 Tournament, Texas still has a chance as a bid stealer if they win the SEC. I honestly no longer see a need to do a Next Four Out section.