As often as possible I will write an article showing my current NCAA Tournament Field of 68, and this is the first of those articles. My weekly article that breaks down each conference into 4 buckets (conference winner, looking good, need wins, life support) is useful showing all the teams currently involved in the chase – this analysis will go one step further, incorporating that information and other sources into actually projecting which teams will be dancing come Selection Sunday. Typically I do not feel this kind of article adds as much value (in early February) as my conference by conference breakdown because there are still 3.5 weeks of regular season action remaining, and conference tournament championship week following. Because of that there is little chance my current projected field remains the same on Selection Sunday, but this can be a value added exercise by showing where teams truly stack up versus one another across the conference landscape. So without further ado, here is my current Field of 68 broken down into three segments (automatic bids, near locks, bubble teams):
AUTOMATIC BIDS (31)
Stony Brook
Butler
Miami, Fla
Florida Gulf Coast
Kansas
Louisville
Montana
UNC-Asheville
Indiana
Long Beach State
Northeastern
Memphis
Valparaiso
Harvard
Canisius
Akron
North Carolina Central
Creighton
New Mexico
Bryant
Belmont
Arizona
Bucknell
Florida
Davidson
Stephen F. Austin
Southern
South Dakota State
Middle Tennessee State
Gonzaga
Louisiana Tech
NEAR LOCKS FOR AT-LARGE BIDS (20) – some are a LOCK to be dancing, and the remaining are close to LOCK status – but its 2/13, meaning there are still 3.5 weeks of regular season action, so teams need to continue winning games – no reason to think they will not hence why they show up in this category
A10: VCU
ACC: Duke, NC State
B12: Kansas State, Oklahoma State
BE: Syracuse, Georgetown, Pittsburgh, Notre Dame, Marquette, Cincinnati
B10: Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, Minnesota
MVC: Wichita State
MWC: UNLV, Colorado State
SEC: Kentucky, Missouri
BUBBLE TEAMS THAT RIGHT NOW ARE IN THE FIELD (17) – most of these teams will wind up in the NCAA Tournament come Selection Sunday, but none of them have signed, sealed & delivered their spot as of yet. As the days & weeks continue to pass expect many of these teams to move up to the next category as they continue bolstering their resumes; while others will fall off & miss the dance.
A10: LaSalle, Temple
ACC: North Carolina
B12: Oklahoma, Iowa State, Baylor
B10: Wisconsin, Illinois
CUSA: Southern Mississippi
MVC: Indiana State
MWC: San Diego State, Boise State
P12: UCLA, Colorado, Oregon
SEC: Ole Miss
WCC: St. Mary’s
CONFERENCE BREAKDOWN # OF TEAMS IN THE FIELD (only showing multiple bid conferences)
A10: 4
ACC: 4
B12: 6
BE: 7
B10: 7
CUSA: 2
MVC: 3
MWC: 5
P12: 4
SEC: 4
WCC: 2
LAST SIX IN THE FIELD – my last six bids were tough to decide on so that is why I chose six. Shown in order below, the last team listed earned the final bid as of today
Oregon
Ole Miss
St. Mary’s
Baylor
Temple
Boise State
FIRST SIX OUT OF THE FIELD – to keep it uniform here are the first six teams that barely missed earning a bid, shown in no particular order
St. Louis
UMass
Charlotte
Virginia
Stanford
Alabama
This analysis is my projected field for the 2013 NCAA Tournament using records & rankings inclusive of games played on Sunday, February 10th. It does not in any way attempt to project the way teams will finish their seasons, potentially improving or worsening their positioning on the S-Curve. In other words, a team like Virginia I see as a solid ball club, who has really started to peak & play some solid basketball of late – unfortunately they struggled early, suffering multiple bad losses during the first two months of the season. But, I do like what I see from them of late, and would not be surprised one bit if they were able to play themselves into earning an at-large berth. There are other teams similar to UVA that I feel the same way about, and yet others that I have in the field as of today that will not wind up dancing – so keep that in mind when reading this, it only analyzes and places teams in or out of the tournament based on their resume to date. Also of note is the fact some of the non-AQ conference tournaments will have upsets where lesser, no-chance-for-an-at-large bid team wins their conference tournament, securing the auto-bid, and thus adding the loser/best team in the conference to the at-large pool of teams. It happens every season, so really when examining my projections above I always say the “last six in” pool as I labeled it will often have a majority of those teams missing the dance because of the smaller conference tournament upsets. So really, the “last six in” bucket will almost wind up being the “first six out” group because of these upsets.
Check back next Monday for my usual conference by conference analysis, while this analysis will be updated when necessary – it may not be weekly at this point in the season; at worst it will be posted every two weeks depending on my free time, and how many changes we see. Once the calendar turns to March this article will be updated on a daily basis – last year we nailed more teams than our buddy Joey “Brackets” Lunardi over at ESPN.com, so come back and reference my work for a better guide as to where teams stand!
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You just steal wcburrsies posts.
ReplyDeleteThere is NO WAY that Pitt is making the tournament.
Marquette will NOT make the tournament.
UMAss?? HAHAHA, you make me laugh!
Alabama SUCKS, they are a bad loss for any team.