This is our first installment of bracketology for the 2017 NCAA
Tournament and comes as we close out January & get into the meat of the
conference schedule!
Below each conference is broken into THREE buckets:
1) Automatic Bid
2) Looking Good [teams highly likely to play well enough in 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]
**Teams are listed in the s-curve order I see them now within
conference with SBPI rank shown first [pure stats based ranking which should be
a better projection than RPI of performance moving forward] and RPI rank shown
second for each team**
America East: Vermont #52/#68
American Athletic: Cincinnati #17/#16
Looking Good: SMU #17/#29
Need Wins: Houston #34/#60, Memphis #54/#82
- Right now there are 2 locks for the
tourney with the possibility of four teams earning a bid. I feel like at most one of these two will
eventually earn a spot with Memphis possibly holding the edge as they already
beat Houston in Houston & they have a victory over South Carolina while
Houston’s best OOC win is Vermont.
Atlantic Ten: Dayton #15/#30
Looking
Good: VCU #27/#32
Need
Wins: Rhode Island #20/#44
- Like the AAC this conference has two
locks for the tourney but really has just one in play for another at-large
bid. URI does have a nice win on their
resume over Cincinnati on a neutral court, which is looking better by the day;
they already lost at Dayton by 3 but get both Dayton & VCU at home in
February – two wins would really help their case.
ACC: North Carolina #5/#6
Looking Good: Florida State #22/#8, Virginia #9/#12,
Louisville #2/#4, Duke #4/#17, Notre Dame #48/#27
Need Wins: Virginia Tech #75/#38, Wake Forest #37/#31, Clemson #26/#39, Georgia
Tech #197/#67, Syracuse #60/#80, Miami #41/#70, NC State #122/#79
- One of the strongest, if not the
strongest conference in the country will certainly receive the most bids come
Selection Sunday – the question is how many?
Six teams are a lock as of today with SEVEN more teams in the mix for a
bid; one certain cut-off point is the need to at least get to 8-10 in conference
play (and those teams likely need at least one ACC Tournament win as well – the
first round of the ACC Tournament will be enormous for all the bubble teams the
conference has). With all that in mind
there is no sense in breaking down all these bubble teams as far as projections
go today – above is how I see them on the S-Curve today; let’s revisit in my
next few editions.
Atlantic Sun: Florida Gulf Coast #127/#103
Big 12: Kansas #28/#2
Looking Good: Baylor #10/#1, West Virginia #7/#25
Need Wins: Oklahoma State #16/#33, TCU #24/#41, Iowa State #38/#49, Kansas
State #39/#51
- This is a clear down year for the Big
12 as a whole as seen with Texas & Oklahoma with triple digit RPI’s. The four teams listed on the bubble here have
A LOT of work to do if they hope to be dancing – we have seen in the past a
10-8 conference record, at a minimum, is what is needed – and this is a down
year for the conference so 11-7 may be more accurate. The problem is if 11-7 is the magic number
that leaves just one more conference loss for Oklahoma State, two for TCU &
Kansas State and three for Iowa State!
What else is working against these teams is the fact the four bubble
teams went a COMBINED 1-16 vs. the RPI Top 25 with the lone win being Kansas
State over West Virginia. You have to
think at least one or two of these teams will wind up dancing, but right now
it’s tough to make a case for any of them, even projecting forward. OKST & TCU rate highest in my SBPI that,
according to my model, means they have the best chance to win games going
forward.
Big East: Villanova #14/#3
Looking Good: Butler #13/#10, Creighton #73/#13,
Xavier #11/#15
Need Wins: Georgetown #95/#52, Marquette #71/#65, Seton Hall #49/#45, Providence
#59/#64
- This is a lock 4 bid league, although
Xavier’s seed may be in free-fall following the Sumner injury. Georgetown has three RPI Top 25 wins and
still has their home and home with Villanova to play – a split there would be
enormous for them. The Hoyas also still
have their home and home vs. Seton Hall that will be huge for both teams if
either could get the sweep. Marquette
picked up a huge resume win over Villanova last week but then went out and lost
to St. John’s and Providence – letting a huge opportunity pass them by which
may come back to bite them. Providence
is barely hanging on & needs at least a 5-2 close to their regular season
to have a shot being that they are 0-6 vs. RPI Top 25.
Big Sky: Weber State #147/#173
Big South: UNC Asheville #64/#91
Big Ten: Wisconsin #8/#21
Looking Good: Maryland #35/#18, Purdue #31/#28
Need Wins: Northwestern #57/#35, Minnesota #25/#23, #Michigan State #135/#47,
Indiana #51/#74, Michigan #40/#62
- Three locks to be dancing as of today
with a fourth, Northwestern, almost a certainty. The four bubble teams, like many as of today
across all conferences, are tough to distinguish between but we have various
benchmarks as mentioned above such as a 9-9 mark in conference play for the Big
Ten. That impacts Minnesota the most as
they would need to close 6-3 to reach that mark; on the flip side they easily
have the best RPI of the four teams so go figure. We will know more over the next two weeks or
so.
Big West: UC Irvine #184/#154
Colonial: UNC Wilmington #46/#36
Conference USA: Middle Tennessee #45/#40 (alive for at-large
without conference title)
Horizon: Valparaiso #89/#61
Ivy: Princeton #80/#100
MAAC: Monmouth #102/#58
MAC: Akron #99/#43
MEAC: North Carolina Central #212/#218
Missouri Valley: Illinois State #72/#37
Mountain West: Nevada #50/#42
Northeast: Mount St. Mary’s #280/#170
Ohio Valley: Belmont #213/#81
Pac 12: Arizona #12/#5
Looking Good: Oregon #6/#11, UCLA #115/#22
Need Wins: USC #44/#24, California #36/#46, Utah #58/#69
- Three locks with three bubble teams; I
do not see either of those opinions changing in the next 2-3 weeks. USC, Cal and Utah still have a lot of work to
do while Arizona, Oregon and UCLA are in the field.
Patriot: Bucknell #126/#97
SEC: Kentucky #3/#7
Looking Good: Florida #1/#9, South Carolina #19/#20
Need Wins: Arkansas #70/#26, Tennessee #30/#34, Alabama #32/#57, Georgia
#101/#50, Vanderbilt #67/#48, Ole Miss #87/#63, Auburn #97/#73
- Seven bubble teams is too many,
however, in a year where outside bid-stealing situation there do not appear to
be ANY mid-major conferences (outside the WCC) that will get an at-large bid
many questionable major conference teams will earn bids. Arkansas is very close to securing their
spot; Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia are roughly in the same boat while the
last three are in a boat further behind.
None of these teams, including Arkansas, has more than 2 RPI Top 50 wins
– whoever changes that record for the better will be well positioned to earn
their way into the dance.
Southern: East Tennessee State #63/#87
Southland: Sam Houston State #104/#127
SWAC: Texas Southern #228/#119
Summit: North Dakota State #150/#89
Sun Belt: UT Arlington #90/#66
West Coast: Gonzaga #29/#14
Looking
Good: St. Mary’s #23/#19
WAC: New Mexico State #55/#54
FIELD: 68
AUTOMATIC BIDS: 32
LOOKING GOOD: 19
Currently I project 51 of the 68 bids
are earned.
NEED WINS: 33
As of this moment we have 33 teams battling for those last 17 bids
that remain “open”
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; as of now I
only see THREE teams that could fit that profile, much smaller sample than
prior years (Middle Tennessee, Gonzaga, St. Mary’s).
Thanks again for reading, please feel free
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2017
