March 8, 2010 –
by Brendon
Printable Version of Bracket »
Note: Teams deemed at least 98-percent likely to make the NCAA Tournament are in bold. Three new at-large teams earned their bold tags over the weekend — Louisville, Oklahoma State and Wake Forest. Notre Dame and Virginia Tech just missed.
Moving In as At-large: Arizona State, Mississippi, San Diego State, Washington
Moving Out as At-large: Georgia Tech, Illinois, Rhode Island, UAB
Moving In as Automatic: Vermont (America East), East Tennessee State (Atlantic Sun), Winthrop (Big South)
Moving Out as Automatic: Stony Brook (America East), Jacksonville (Atlantic Sun), Coastal Carolina (Big South)
On the Bubble: There was a lot of shuffling around the bubble this weekend with several teams suffering near-devastating losses. Georgia Tech and Illinois both had blowout losses at home. The loss for the Yellow Jackets is their third in five and fifth in seven, and more importantly, it puts them at 7-9 in conference. To me, Illinois only looked like an NCAA Tournament team for about a week all season — when it beat Wisconsin and Michigan State. We’ll see if that 10-8 conference record is enough to override losing five of six and dropping games to Georgia, Bradley and Utah out of conference. Rhode Island lost its fifth of seven against 18-loss UMass in Amherst on Saturday. That will be hard to overcome. Finally, UAB needed to win one of its two tough games this week, but the Blazers lost both by a total of seven points, including a 52-50 win at C-USA champ UTEP on Saturday. Read More »
Posted in Bracket Junkie, National Perspective
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Tagged Arizona State, Baylor, Brigham Young, California, Charlotte, Clemson, Connecticut, Dayton, Duke, Evan Turner, Florida, Florida State, Georgetown, Georgia Tech, Gonzaga, Illinois, Kansas, Kansas State, Kentucky, Louisville, Marquette, Maryland, Michigan State, Mississippi, Mississippi State, Missouri, New Mexico, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Oklahoma State, Old Dominion, Pittsburgh, Purdue, Rhode Island, Richmond, Saint Louis, Saint Mary's, San Diego State, Seton Hall, South Florida, Syracuse, Temple, Tennessee, Texas, Texas A&M, UAB, UNLV, Vanderbilt, Villanova, Virginia Tech, Wake Forest, Washington, West Virginia, Wichita State, William & Mary, Wisconsin, Xavier
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February 16, 2010 –
by Brendon
In a span of 72 hours, each of the Big East’s top four teams — squads that once fit neatly on the top two seedlines of most NCAA Tournament projections — lost. In and of themselves, the losses for West Virginia, Syracuse, Georgetown and Villanova won’t do anything to affect their NCAA Tournament acceptance and will do little to affect their seeding, but what they did do was reveal potentially fatal flaws, which are often overlooked as teams pile up wins.
West Virginia: The Mountaineers’ 98-95 overtime loss at Pittsburgh was the most excusable of the defeats suffered by the Big East’s top four on this holiday weekend, but it was also West Virginia’s second-straight loss. It may come as a surprise to some that it’s WVU’s defense and not its offense that has been mostly to blame in the team’s five defeats.
|
Efficiencies |
Defense |
| Opponent |
PPP |
PPP |
eFG |
Turn |
Reb |
FTR |
2PT% |
3PT% |
| at Purdue |
0.987 |
1.225 |
0.536 |
0.111 |
0.318 |
0.411 |
0.545 |
0.333 |
| at Notre Dame |
1.130 |
1.164 |
0.616 |
0.150 |
0.180 |
0.558 |
0.533 |
0.538 |
| vs. Syracuse |
1.065 |
1.080 |
0.622 |
0.300 |
0.458 |
0.578 |
0.667 |
0.333 |
| vs. Villanova |
1.044 |
1.142 |
0.618 |
0.251 |
0.460 |
0.431 |
0.600 |
0.455 |
| at Pittsburgh |
1.165 |
1.202 |
0.508 |
0.098 |
0.274 |
0.536 |
0.500 |
0.346 |
| Composite |
1.078 |
1.163 |
0.580 |
0.182 |
0.338 |
0.503 |
0.569 |
0.401 |
You can see that West Virginia is allowing 0.085 points per possession more than it is scoring in its five losses. The main culprit is field-goal defense. Despite the Mountaineers’ notable length, they are allowing opponents to make 40 percent of their 3-pointers and 57 percent of their 2-pointers in these defeats. For the season, West Virginia is ahead of only the comparatively tiny Marquette and Providence squads in 2-point defense among Big East teams. Read More »
Posted in Big East
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Tagged Andy Rautins, Antonio Pena, Arinze Onuaku, Big East, Billy Gillispie, Brandon Triche, Colorado, Corey Stokes, Georgetown, Georgia, Greg Monroe, Iowa, Jared Swopshire, Jessie Sapp, John Thompson III, Kansas State, Louisville, North Carolina, Notre Dame, Pittsburgh, Providence, Purdue, Rakeem Buckles, Rick Jackson, Rutgers, Samardo Samuels, Scoop Jardine, Sharaud Curry, Southern Cal, Southern Illinois, Syracuse, Texas A&M, Villanova, Washington, West Virginia, Western Kentucky
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February 5, 2010 –
by Brendon
Printable Version of Bracket »
Bracketing Challenges: Well, it finally happened. After relatively smooth bracketing so far this season, I ran into a bunch of problems trying to separate teams from the same conference. The Big East and ACC grouped teams in the 2-3-6-7-10-11 seeds; the Big 12 grouped in the 1-4-5-8-9 seeds. Therefore, I had to move a record five teams up and five teams down by one seedline. We don’t know how common this is for the NCAA Tournament committee because it doesn’t reveal this information like I do, but I would guess it happens with 2-4 teams per year. I’m hopeful that these uneven distributions work themselves out by mid-March.
It’s important to note that Cincinnati was moved from its true seedline of No. 10 because three of the spots where the Bearcats could have played already had a Big East team in the eight-team pod. In the other spot, the No. 7 seed was Xavier, a team that Cincinnati plays every year. The NCAA prefers to avoid those rematches early in the tournament, and that’s especially the case since UC-XU is a notorious rivalry.
Breakdown: One of the surprising parts of this bracket to many of you might be Michigan State’s position as a No. 3 seed after its loss to Wisconsin. MSU was being propped up by that undefeated conference record, and now that it’s no longer, we can evaluate the Spartans on their paltry list of quality victories. Michigan State has just two wins against top-50 RPI teams — Gonzaga and Wisconsin at home, and Sparty has yet to play Ohio State or Purdue. The Boilermakers are now a No. 2 seed even though they’ve actually played an easier conference schedule than MSU so far, but they have four top-50 wins, including Tennessee and West Virginia out of conference. Read More »
Posted in Bracket Junkie, National Perspective
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Tagged ACC, Alabama, Andy Kennedy, Arizona, Arizona State, Arkansas, Augustus Gilchrist, Baylor, Big 12, Big East, Big Ten, Brigham Young, Bruce Weber, Butler, California, Cincinnati, Clemson, Colorado, Connecticut, Cornell, Dayton, DePaul, Derrick Williams, Dominique Jones, Duke, Evan Turner, Florida, Florida State, Gary Williams, Georgetown, Georgia Tech, Gonzaga, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Kentucky, Leonard Hamilton, Marquette, Maryland, Miami (Fla.), Michigan, Michigan State, Mid-Majors, Minnesota, Mississippi, Mississippi State, Missouri, New Mexico, North Carolina, Northern Iowa, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Oklahoma State, Pac-10, Penn State, Pittsburgh, Providence, Purdue, Rhode Island, Robert Morris, Rutgers, Scott Drew, SEC, Seton Hall, Siena, South Carolina, South Florida, Stan Heath, Stanford, Syracuse, Temple, Tennessee, Texas, Texas A&M, UCLA, USC, Vanderbilt, Villanova, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Washington, Washington State, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Xavier
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February 1, 2010 –
by Brendon
Printable Version of Bracket »
Breakdown: Perhaps the most difficult aspect to building this bracket was finding that last No. 3 seed. Out of Purdue, Kansas State, Duke, Texas and West Virginia, it was clear that two of them would be No. 2 seeds and three would be No. 3 seeds, but there was no obvious choice to fill out that third line. Just like in the last projection, I went with New Mexico over Brigham Young and any other team — Wisconsin, Tennessee, Baylor, Temple, Ohio State, Georgia Tech — that might have had a claim.
The good thing is that none of those teams had a very strong claim at that spot. New Mexico was the choice because its five wins against top-50 teams was more than any other team that hadn’t been bracketed, except Georgia Tech and Pittsburgh, which also have five. New Mexico’s record (20-3), combined with a head-to-head win over Brigham Young, a six-game winning streak and a 10th ranking in my seeding model put the Lobos over the top. I’m not sure what the Selection Committee would do if presented this scenario, but the only other teams I could see them bracketing here are BYU, who — again — has lost to New Mexico head-to-head, or Ohio State, if the Buckeyes were given a complete pass for losses suffered when Evan Turner was injured. Read More »
Posted in Bracket Junkie, National Perspective
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Tagged Arizona, Arizona State, Arkansas, Baylor, Billy Donovan, Brigham Young, California, Clemson, Connecticut, Creighton, Dayton, Demetri McCamey, DePaul, Duke, Evan Turner, Florida, Georgetown, Georgia, Georgia Tech, Gonzaga, Illinois, Illinois State, Indiana, Jimmy Butler, Kansas, Kansas State, Kentucky, Louisville, LSU, Luke Harangody, Marquette, Maryland, Miami (Fla.), Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Mississippi, Mississippi State, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Carolina, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Penn State, Pittsburgh, Providence, Purdue, Rutgers, Sean Miller, South Carolina, South Florida, Syracuse, Temple, Tennesse, Tennessee, Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Vanderbilt, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Wake Forest, Washington, West Virginia, Wichita State, William & Mary, Wisconsin
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January 29, 2010 –
by Brendon
Printable Version of Bracket »
Notes: First, automatic bids for each conference are determined by conference record with tiebreakers broken by rank in our BTI model, not by head-to-head or other conference tiebreakers. Of course, every conference except for the Ivy League determines its ultimate automatic bid with a tournament, so conference tiebreakers really don’t matter much for our purposes. Second, there is one potential regular-season rematch in the first two rounds, and that’s in the South where Kentucky and Connecticut could meet. There was already a Big East team in the other three spots where a No. 9 seed could go, and the priority is keeping teams on their true seedlines over avoiding rematches.
Breakdown: In the end, I guess all of this was just bluster. The point of this bracket projection — even in January — is to accurately determine what the Selection Committee would do if it had to select and seed the field today. With that as the overriding standard, I found myself unable to move Texas or Duke ahead of Kentucky for the last No. 1 seed. If I wanted to make a bracket of what should happen, we’d have an entirely different projection. UK is still just 13th in the BTI seeding model, but that is a seeding model based on an entire season of play and pro-rated for what’s happened so far. This is a bracket based on less than three months of play, and so sometimes we’re left with guesswork. My best guess is that Kentucky would get the nod over Duke and Texas right now. Read More »
Posted in Bracket Junkie, National Perspective
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Tagged A.J. Ogilvy, ACC, Alabama, Arizona, Arizona State, Atlantic-10, Auburn, Baylor, Big 12, Big East, Big Monday, Big Ten, Boston College, Brigham Young, California, Charlotte, Cincinnati, Clemson, Colonial, Connecticut, Courtney Fortson, Dayton, DePaul, Duke, Florida State, Frank Martin, Georgetown, Georgia, Illinois, Ivy League, Jeffrey Taylor, Jermaine Beal, John Jenkins, Jon Leuer, Kansas, Kansas State, Ken Pomeroy, Kentucky, LaSalle, Louisville, LSU, Maryland, Massachusetts, Matt Painter, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Mississippi State, Mountain West, New Mexico, North Carolina, Northwestern, Ohio State, Oklahoma State, Oliver Purnell, Pac-10, Penn State, Pittsburgh, Providence, Purdue, Rhode Island, Richmond, Rick Barnes, Rick Stansbury, San Diego State, Sean Miller, SEC, Seth Greenberg, South Carolina, South Florida, St. Joseph's, Stanford, Syracuse, Temple, Texas, Texas A&M, Travis Ford, UNLV, Vanderbilt, Virgina Tech, Virginia, Virginia Commonwealth, Virginia Tech, Washington, West Virginia, William & Mary, Wisconsin, Xavier
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January 22, 2010 –
by Brendon
Printable Version of Bracket »
Breakdown: This is our first projection of the season, as I like to wait until most teams have at least four conference games under their belts. It’s not until about now that you can really get a good gauge on a team. Everything up until now is primarily guesswork. Even so, there is a lot on this bracket that will look strange come March. The question is what. The answers will be revealed over the next seven weeks. One predictions: the Colonial Athletic Association will have fewer than three teams in the field.
For a frame of reference, in our first projection last season on Jan. 25, Kentucky and Florida were No. 6 seeds, and Georgetown was a No. 7; none of those three made the NCAAs. On the other hand, the Nos. 1-5 seeds all made the NCAAs. The four teams that ended the season as No. 1 seeds were 1, 1, 2 and 3 in our first projection. Ten of the teams seeded on the first four lines of last year’s first projection ended up as top-four seeds by March. So, there is perhaps more stability than one might expect. Read More »
Posted in Bracket Junkie, National Perspective
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Tagged ACC, Arizona State, Atlantic-10, Baylor, Big 12, Big East, Big Ten, California, Charlotte, Cincinnati, Clemson, Colonial, Connecticut, Dayton, Duke, Evan Turner, Florida, Florida State, Georgetown, Georgia Tech, Gonzaga, Illinois, Iowa State, Kansas State, Kentucky, Louisville, Maryland, Michigan State, Minnesota, Mississippi, Mississippi State, Mountain West, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Carolina State, Northeastern, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Old Dominion, Pac-10, Pittsburgh, Purdue, Rhode Island, Richmond, Saint Louis, Saint Mary's, San Diego State, SEC, South Carolina, Stanford, Syracuse, Temple, Tennessee, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, UCLA, Vanderbilt, Villanova, Virginia, Virginia Commonwealth, Wake Forest, Washington, West Virginia, William & Mary, Wisconsin, Xavier
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January 13, 2010 –
by Brendon
Kansas State 88, Texas A&M 65: We thought the Big 12 would be right with the ACC in the pecking order of top conferences this season, but much of the league has gone under the radar thanks to headline-grabbing seasons from Kansas and Texas. Because of this, you may have missed that K-State has now started 13-2 and sits in the top 10 in the RPI and Pomeroy ratings. On Tuesday, the Wildcats dominated a pretty good Texas A&M team, one that is now 0-9 all-time in Manhattan.
|
Poss |
PPP |
eFG |
Turn |
Off Reb |
FTR |
| Texas A&M |
74 |
0.88 |
0.400 |
0.202 |
0.295 |
0.418 |
| Kansas State |
74 |
1.19 |
0.542 |
0.202 |
0.457 |
0.407 |
It may be hard to believe that Kansas State actually has one of the best offenses in the country, but that’s what the numbers suggest. The Wildcats dominate the offensive glass, led by Connecticut transfer Curtis Kelly and junior Dominique Sutton. Each had three on Tuesday as K-State grabbed 46 percent of its misses. Read More »
Posted in Big 12, Game of the Night
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Tagged Big 12, Chinemelu Elonu, Clemson, Connecticut, Curtis Kelly, Denis Clemente, Dominique Sutton, Jacob Pullen, Jamar Samuels, Josh Carter, Kansas, Kansas State, Minnesota, Texas, Texas A&M
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December 30, 2009 –
by Brendon
The Big Ten opened conference play on Tuesday night with a pair of matchups between teams aiming for the top of the league and teams hoping to avoid its very bottom. The top teams one, though without the ease one might have expected.
You can forgive Purdue for its sloppy start against an Iowa team, which — in my mother’s words — stinks to high heaven. With undefeated West Virginia ahead on Friday in West Lafayette, the Boilermakers looked disinterested in a first half that saw them make just 11-of-30 shots, including 1-of-6 3-pointers. Still, Iowa led by just one at the half, and the handwriting was on the wall for the second half, as Purdue pulled away for a 67-56 win.
| Team |
Poss |
PPP |
eFG |
Turn |
Reb |
FTR |
| Purdue |
60 |
1.11 |
0.528 |
0.116 |
0.281 |
0.208 |
| Iowa |
60 |
0.93 |
0.471 |
0.265 |
0.344 |
0.157 |
Robbie Hummel and E’Twaune Moore had hot second halves, but what might have been most surprising was JaJuan Johnson’s indifferent night. The junior had just six points and no free-throw attempts against one of major conference’s worst interior defenses. Johnson’s quiet night made no difference though, since Iowa couldn’t hold on to the ball on offense or stop the rest of the Boilers on defense. Considering the strengths and weaknesses of these two teams, Purdue’s far superior percentage on 2-pointers (52.4 to 42.9) and nine fewer turnovers were as predictable as they were devastating. Read More »
Posted in Big Ten, Reviews/Previews
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Tagged Al Nolen, Andrew Jones, Big Ten, Blake Hoffarber, Colton Iverson, Damian Johnson, David Jackson, Devoe Joseph, E'Twaune Moore, Illinois, Iowa, JaJuan Johnson, Jeff Brooks, Keaton Grant, Lawrence Westbrook, Matt Painter, Miam (Fla.), Minnesota, Northwestern, Ohio State, Penn State, Portland, Purdue, Ralph Sampson, Robbie Hummel, Royce White, Talor Battle, Texas A&M, Tubby Smith, West Virginia, Wisconsin
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