Unlike last year when we waited until approximately half way
through the conference season to post our first bracketology projection, this
year we are posting an initial projection as conference play begins. Below we breakdown each conference into three
buckets: 1) automatic bid [discussed in next sentence]; 2) looking good [teams
highly likely to play well enough over the final two months of the regular
season to earn a bid]; 3) need wins [teams that are firmly on the bubble and
will need to play well to close their season]. For the non-AQ conferences we generally select
the team with the highest RPI as the conference winner/automatic bid. Teams are also listed in the s-curve order I
see them now within conference:
America East: Albany
American Athletic:
Louisville
Looking good:
Cincinnati
Need
wins: Memphis, UConn, SMU
Atlantic Ten: UMass
Looking
good: George Washington, Dayton, St. Louis
Need
wins: VCU
ACC: Syracuse
Looking
good: Duke, Pittsburgh
Need
wins: North Carolina, Notre Dame, Virginia, Florida State, Wake Forest
Atlantic Sun: Mercer
Big 12: Oklahoma
State
Looking
good: Iowa State, Kansas, Oklahoma, Baylor
Need
wins: Kansas State, Texas, West Virginia
Big East: Villanova
Looking
good: Creighton, Xavier
Need
wins: Georgetown, Butler, St. Johns
Big Sky: Northern
Colorado
Big South:
UNC-Asheville
Big Ten: Michigan
State
Looking
good: Ohio State, Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa
Need
wins: Michigan, Minnesota
Big West: UC-Santa
Barbara
Colonial: Drexel
Conference USA: Southern
Mississippi
Horizon: Green Bay
Ivy: Harvard
If
HARVARD does not win their conference tournament they would still RECEIVE a bid, thus taking a
spot away from the at-large field.
MAAC: Manhattan
MAC: Toledo
MEAC: North
Carolina Central
Missouri Valley: Wichita
State
If
WICHITA STATE does not win their conference tournament they would still RECEIVE a bid, thus taking a
spot away from the at-large field.
Mountain West: San
Diego State
Looking
good: New Mexico
Need
wins: Boise State
Northeast: Bryant
Ohio Valley: Belmont
Pac 12: Arizona
Looking
good: Colorado, Oregon, UCLA
Need
wins: California, Stanford, Arizona State
Patriot: Boston
University
SEC: Florida
Looking
good: Kentucky, Missouri
Need
wins: Arkansas, Tennessee, LSU, Ole Miss
Southern: Davidson
Southland: Stephen
F. Austin
SWAC: Jackson
State
Summit: North
Dakota State
Sun Belt: UL-Lafayette
West Coast: Gonzaga
If
GONZAGA does not win their conference tournament they would still RECEIVE a bid, thus taking one
away from the current at-large pool.
Need wins: St. Mary’s, BYU
WAC: New Mexico
State
FIELD: 68
AUTOMATIC BIDS: 32
(up from 31 due to new American Athletic Conference)
LOOKING GOOD: 22
Currently I project 54
of the 68 bids are
earned.
NEED WINS: 27
That leaves 27 teams that are in the mix for 14 open bids.
Keep in mind however that DOES NOT include the upsets we will see during Conference
Tournament week where teams that are LOCKS
from smaller conferences lose a game in their conference tournament and hence use
an at-large bid on themselves. There
does seem to be less “bid stealing” opportunities as of today than we have seen
in past years, but there is still a lot of season left to play.
As of today here is the way we project those final 14 bids
to play out – again, this is NOT based on who would be in the tourney as of action
played so far; instead we project what WILL happen over the final 2 months of the
regular season & forecast which teams will earn those 14 bids (listed in
conference alphabetical order at this point in the season):
Memphis
UConn
VCU
North Carolina
Notre Dame
Virginia
Florida State
Kansas State
Texas
Georgetown
Michigan
Minnesota
Arkansas
Tennessee
First five out:
First five out:
SMU
Stanford
Arizona State
St. Mary's
BYU
Stanford
Arizona State
St. Mary's
BYU
Multiple bid
conferences (total of 45 bids in 9 conferences; 23 single bid conferences = 68
bids):
ACC (7)
B12 (7)
B10 (7)
A10 (5)
SEC (5)
AAC (4)
BE (4)
P12 (4)
MWC (2)
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