Bracketology 2011

Collegiate Sports
1

Antsy for bracketology this year so figured I’d try what Joe Lunardi does. Entertaining and good convo so comment if you gottem or share your own picks.

This is what I think SHOULD happen, not necessarily what I predict the committee will pick. I actually don’t know which angle Lunardi goes for, but I expect the latter. I also didn’t use RPI for this. This is all Kenpom.com and what I know from watching. I didn’t consult Lunardi’s predictions prior to making my own.

Didn’t bother actually putting this in bracket since it’s basically just decided from a list like this (and several other lesser factors so it’s just not worthwhile).

Seed - List Rank - Team (For games played before 3/8/11)

1 - 1 Kansas
1 - 2 OSU
1 - 3 Pitt
1 - 4 Duke

2 - 5 ND
2 - 6 Purdue
2 - 7 Syracuse
2 - 8 BYU

3 - 9 North Carolina
3 - 10 Texas
3 - 11 SDSU
3 - 12 Florida

4 - 13 Wisconsin
4 - 14 Louisville
4 - 15 Georgetown
4 - 16 Kentucky

5 - 17 UNLV
5 - 18 KSU
5 - 19 St. John’s
5 - 20 Vanderbilt

6 - 21 UConn
6 - 22 Villanova
6 - 23 Mizzou
6 - 24 Cincinnati

7 - 25 West Virginia
7 - 26 UCLA
7 - 27 Gonzaga
7 - 28 Texas A&M

8 - 29 Temple
8 - 30 ODU
8 - 31 Illinois
8 - 32 Florida St.

9 - 33 Xavier
9 - 34 Arizona
9 - 35 Marquette
9 - 36 Richmond

10 - 37 George Mason
10 - 38 Clemson
10 - 39 Utah St.
10 - 40 VT

11 - 41 Washington
11 - 42 So. Cal
11 - 43 New Mexico
11 - 44 Michigan

12 - 45 St. Mary’s
12 - 46 Butler
12 - 47 Georgia
12 - 48 UAB
++++++++++++
13 - 49 Belmont <-Auto-bid
50-68 Auto-bids

If a team from a multi-bid conference steals a spot by winning the conf tourney, teams fall off at that “+++” line (i.e. UAB is the first to go.)

First Four Out
Tennessee
Alabama
UTEP
Michigan St.

Next Four Out
Nebraska
Colorado
Washington St.
BC

After checking Lundardi’s current bracketology, we are close on a lot of stuff, but certainly disagree elsewhere. Georgetown, Arizona, and Xavier come to mind. Fun stuff.

2

Awesome.

BTW, are people still down for NNN bracket challenges

3

I’m in. Are we doing this via ESPN? Last year I had a prediction bracket, but I also had a bracket (seperate from the challenge) where I picked the winner based off who I wanted to win. It was interesting to see how close/distant things turn out from how you hope.

4

I’m down.

5

Well there has been a yahoo or cbs one forever. But the more accounts the merrier.

6

I’m down, obviously. We’ll probly use the CBS one again.

…Can’t believe no one else has opinions yet lol.

7

Figured I’d post this link since it’s not so easy to find.

[size=2]9[/size]th Annual NNN Bracket Challenge
http://cusa-talk.mayhem.cbssports.com/brackets
Group Name: Niner Nation
Password: halton

8

My updated take as of the B10 championship final. Same deal as last time. Kinda rushed lol.
Really wish Harvard woulda fit.

edit: And I didn’t have time to check to see how many bubble spots got taken, so just move the last four out line up if that’s wrong heh. Pretty sure it’s right tho.

1 - 1 Kansas
1 - 2 OSU
1 - 3 Duke
1 - 4 Pitt

2 - 5 ND
2 - 6 North Carolina
2 - 7 SDSU
2 - 8 Syracuse

3 - 9 Texas
3 - 10 BYU
3 - 11 UConn
3 - 12 Kentucky

4 - 13 Louisville
4 - 14 Florida
4 - 15 Purdue
4 - 16 UNLV

5 - 17 Vanderbilt
5 - 18 St. John’s
5 - 19 Wisconsin
5 - 20 Arizona

6 - 21 Georgetown
6 - 22 Cincinnati
6 - 23 Gonzaga
6 - 24 KSU

7 - 25 Texas A&M
7 - 26 ODU
7 - 27 Mizzou
7 - 28 Temple

8 - 29 Villanova
8 - 30 Marquette
8 - 31 Richmond
8 - 32 Washington

9 - 33 West Virginia
9 - 34 UCLA
9 - 35 Clemson
9 - 36 George Mason

10 - 37 Utah St.
10 - 38 VT
10 - 39 Illinois
10 - 40 Florida St.

11 - 41 Xavier
11 - 42 So. Cal
11 - 43 St. Mary’s
11 - 44 Butler

12 - 45 New Mexico
12 - 46 Georgia
12 - 47 Colorado
12 - 48 Penn St.

12 - 49 Michigan

First four out
50 Michigan St.
51 UTEP
52 Tennessee
53 Alabama

Edit again: Turns out I had my number of auto bids wrong. Thought it was 32. So Michigan gets in.

9

I would be interested in doing this.

10

Picks wrong:
Lunarid - 3
Me - 4

I’ll take it. Though I thought they said he’d gotten all but 9 right in the last ~9 years, so this would seem a bad year for him.

I hate the ACC, and even I kinda feel like VT got snubbed when compared to some of the folks who got in. B10 didn’t have 7 teams better than VT.

But 3 for A10, 3 for CAA, and 2 for CUSA is pretty cool. They easily could have just snubbed all the non-BCS schools on the bubble who were as worthy as all these other bubble teams.

Lookin forward to seein how people think the bracket will play out.

11

[quote=“49or bust, post:10, topic:25107”]Picks wrong:
Lunarid - 3[/quote]

Can they please stop with the 98.4% or whatever stat for him. As Bilas has said in the past (64 &65 team fields), anyone can get the top 60 or so teams right. It’d the last 4 that are the tough part.

He 1 for 4 this year. 2 for 5 at best. A coin flip was more accurate.

After my typical initial knee jerk about low seeding for A10 teams, etc, I feel a little better about the committee this year. And it was Digger, of all people, who pointed this out, though not this directly or conclusively: the committee did exactly what we, the public, as a whole, wanted them to do with those last few play in at large bids: they made sure they went to “mid majors”. Especially after last season, when there were what, 4? 5? non BCS at large teams, everyone was worried that the extra bids would just go to mid run BCS schools. After already installing a record 11 Big East teams in the tournament, there is no way they were gonna stick in Colorado and VT ahead of VCU and UAB, though I was a little confused why those two over St Mary’s.

Anyway, they actually listened, for good or for worse.

As a Niner fan, here’s where your allegiance needs to lie in this tournament:

Cheer on VCU and UAB like they were us. We need them to win in the worst way and validate the committee. As bad or worse than we need Temple or Rich or X to advance. In general, root on every non BCS school, and hope they all win. It only helps our cause for the future.

If UAB and VCU get bounced immediately, the howling from the talking heads is gonna be loud and you’d better believe next year those spots will go to BCS schools.

12

[quote=“NinerAdvocate, post:11, topic:25107”][quote=“49or bust, post:10, topic:25107”]Picks wrong:
Lunarid - 3[/quote]

Can they please stop with the 98.4% or whatever stat for him. As Bilas has said in the past (64 &65 team fields), anyone can get the top 60 or so teams right. It’d the last 4 that are the tough part.

He 1 for 4 this year. 2 for 5 at best. A coin flip was more accurate.[/quote]
I know right. I think it’s a little bit tougher than that (as in not just 4 teams spots to consider), but when you get down to it it’s not such a feat to get all but 1 or 2.

After my typical initial knee jerk about low seeding for A10 teams, etc, I feel a little better about the committee this year. And it was Digger, of all people, who pointed this out, though not this directly or conclusively: the committee did exactly what we, the public, as a whole, wanted them to do with those last few play in at large bids: they made sure they went to "mid majors". Especially after last season, when there were what, 4? 5? non BCS at large teams, everyone was worried that the extra bids would just go to mid run BCS schools. After already installing a record 11 Big East teams in the tournament, there is no way they were gonna stick in Colorado and VT ahead of VCU and UAB, though I was a little confused why those two over St Mary's.

Anyway, they actually listened, for good or for worse.

As a Niner fan, here’s where your allegiance needs to lie in this tournament:

Cheer on VCU and UAB like they were us. We need them to win in the worst way and validate the committee. As bad or worse than we need Temple or Rich or X to advance. In general, root on every non BCS school, and hope they all win. It only helps our cause for the future.

If UAB and VCU get bounced immediately, the howling from the talking heads is gonna be loud and you’d better believe next year those spots will go to BCS schools.


I noticed this too, with delight. Good to see the non-BCS bubble teams getting a chance, tho, yea, think SMU should have gone ahead of VCU.

Absolutely, always root for the little guys. Does still bum me out when they have a team like SDSU in line to play a team like Temple in the 2nd game. And ODU playing Butler. Not cool.

13

It’s also not cool (IMO) seeing Big East teams having to play eachother in the second round (UConn vs. Cincy and SU vs. Marquette possibly). I don’t think pairing mid majors is as bad as it has been like last year where there were 3 or 4 pairings in the first round. It’s bound to happen, and it doesn’t bother me so much when it’s an 8/9 game as I think it speaks to the quality of the team.

I still don’t see the value in how rooting for VCU/UAB to do well helps us. Saying it will leave a bad taste in the committee’s mouth shouldn’t be an issue. Everyone knows this years bubble teams were horrendously weak. Also, while it’s nice 3/4 teams are non-BCS schools, I’d much rather have those schools in the immediate field, and leave the cry baby BCS programs to the play in games, largely b/c BCS schools have multiple opportunities to make the field, non-BCS, not so much.

Bottom line, if you’re good and handle your business, you should make it. Some BCS and non-BCS schools learned that yesterday (eventhough I’d switch a few).

14

bump, there are alot of people in the CBS bracket challenge. Don’t miss out!

15
Bottom line, if you're good and handle your business, you should make it.

Isn’t the evdience the exact opposite? Richmond wins 27 games and only gets in cause they won the A10?

Utah State wins 30 freaking games and is a 12 seed?

I keep seeing this argued both ways, and its confusing me. From my point of view, you can’t say winning is enough then say some of these teams don’t deserve to be in, and that them winning games in the tournament is not important.

16

By casual observation, there is one BCS conference that appears to be getting more than it’s fair share of invites recently to NCAA trnm’s - the Big10. They got way more at-large invites to the way hard to get into College Cup this year than anyone thought, and continue to get the same with mens BBall. Haven’t looked at the other NCAA sports, but I was shocked to see the Big10 doing better than the SEC. Something is up - I thought 5 Big10 teams at the most for this yrs BBall trnm.

17

It seems they’re still heavily relying on the RPI. Harvard(based on the RPI) might have been the biggest snub. Aside from that, teams like UGA, FSU, Clemson, VCU, MSU, Illini, PSU, were all ahead of Alabama, Colorado and VT in the RPI.

The next biggest snub(again, based on RPI) may have been Boston College. Nobody’s really mentioning them nearly as much as VT.

18

Now the validity of the RPI is a whole different discussion.

I think the BE is the best conference. But do they deserve 11 bids, probably not. I feel RPIs for teams like Marq, Cincy, Georgetown and Nova all really benefited from playing in the BE. Put them in another conference and they’d all be more on the bubble, or worse RPIs.

19

[quote=“NinerAdvocate, post:15, topic:25107”]

Bottom line, if you’re good and handle your business, you should make it.

Isn’t the evdience the exact opposite? Richmond wins 27 games and only gets in cause they won the A10?

Utah State wins 30 freaking games and is a 12 seed?

I keep seeing this argued both ways, and its confusing me. From my point of view, you can’t say winning is enough then say some of these teams don’t deserve to be in, and that them winning games in the tournament is not important.[/quote]

I said handle your business which means win the games you’re supposed to and beat some good/great teams along the way. As for USU’s 30 wins:

http://kenpom.com/team.php?team=Utah%20St.

Their best win was St. Mary’s a non-tourney team. They lost both games to the only tourney teams they played (Georgetown and BYU), and also lost to a crap Idaho team. 30 wins is nice, but 22 vs. actual competition is better.

and UR:

http://kenpom.com/team.php?team=Richmond

Bad losses to Iona, GT (sorry we beat them), and Bucknell (who made the tourney but is not a team UR has business losing too). They also were blasted by X and Temple during the season, and when they’re the other two teams going to the tourney that may reflect on you since they’re your conference peers (eventhough they avenged the Temple loss). I agree a 12 seed is steep for them. I would have thought a 10, or the higher rated 11 seed. I’d also think a A10 tourney championship would have pushed them higher. I think their Jekyl and Hyde play at times factored as the head committee guy said last night they felt the need to reward teams that were more consistent during the season. Maybe the committee didn’t like that they gave them a 7 seed last year and they were blasted by St. Mary’s since you seem to think leaving a bad taste in their mouth can cause issues down the road.

20

[quote=“Normmm, post:18, topic:25107”]Now the validity of the RPI is a whole different discussion.

I think the BE is the best conference. But do they deserve 11 bids, probably not. I feel RPIs for teams like Marq, Cincy, Georgetown and Nova all really benefited from playing in the BE. Put them in another conference and they’d all be more on the bubble, or worse RPIs.[/quote]

I think the Pac10, SEC, and ACC having down years contributed to this