Bracketology Update 2/24/2020

1	Kansas	Baylor	Gonzaga	San Diego St.
2	Duke	Dayton	Maryland	Creighton
3	Seton Hall	Florida St.	Villanova	Oregon
4	Kentucky	Louisville	West Virginia	Michigan St.
5	Auburn	Penn St.	Colorado	Iowa
6	Michigan	Arizona	Ohio St.	Butler
7	Wisconsin	BYU	Illinois	Houston
8	Arizona St.	LSU	Marquette	Indiana
9	Texas Tech	Saint Mary’s	Florida	Xavier
10	Providence	Virginia	Rutgers	Wichita St.
11	Georgetown	Rhode Island	Stanford/Utah St.	Oklahoma/N.C. State
12	Northern Iowa	East Tennessee St.	Liberty	Yale
13	Stephen F. Austin	Akron	Vermont	North Texas
14	New Mexico St.	Colgate	Belmont	South Dakota St.
15	Northern Colorado	Wright St.	Hofstra	Little Rock
16	UC Irvine	Winthrop	St. Francis PA/Prairie View A&M	Siena/Norfolk St.

Number 1 Seeds: Kansas, Baylor, Gonzaga, San Diego St.
Lurking: Duke, Dayton, Maryland

Last 4 Byes: Rutgers, Wichita St., Georgetown, Rhode Island
Last 4 In: Stanford, Utah St., Oklahoma, N.C. State
First 4 Out: USC, Richmond, Arkansas, Cincinnati
Next 4 Out: Mississippi St., Alabama, Purdue, Memphis

Also considered: Minnesota, Texas, Notre Dame, UNC Greensboro, Oklahoma St., South Carolina, UCLA

Bracket Notes:
Somehow the top line remains unchanged (other than Kansas and Baylor swapping #1 and #2 overall). Despite losses for Gonzaga and San Diego St., Maryland was unable to capitalize as they fell at Ohio St. on Sunday. My gut says the committee will eventually move the best of Duke, Dayton, or Maryland to the #1 seed in the East, and the Aztecs will slot into the #2 seed in the West to help ease some bracketing issues. For instance, while San Diego St. is a #1 seed, it pushes Duke, Maryland, and Dayton to the 2 line, putting a Cleveland and two Greensboro pods as 2/7 pairings in the South and East Regionals. Since BYU must play in one of these regionals, as a current #7 seed, they would have to be bumped to the #8 seed in the St. Louis/Houston pod & regional site to meet their Thursday/Saturday scheduling requirement. Stacking 2 of Duke, Maryland, and Dayton in the East opens up another potential site for a 7 seeded BYU to play in St. Louis/Houston.

The top 7 teams are all but locked in, as discussed above. There are then a set of 4 teams all jockeying for the fourth #2 seed: Creighton, Seton Hall, Florida St., and Villanova. At least one of the Big East teams should have a better resume than Florida St., but the eye test may lean Florida St., which makes this a very difficult call. To circle back to determining the final #1 seed, the placement for the eventual #8 team becomes less problematic if San Diego St. takes the #2 seed in the West; likely leaving the #2 in the Houston regional.

Not Oregon’s best week, losing at Arizona St., but completing the sweep against Arizona was a nice bounce back, and enough to maintain position as the final 3 seed. I’ve got Kentucky ahead of Louisville on the 4 line, as I value the head-to-head win and the 4-2 record vs Q1A (Louisville is only 1-3). There does seem to be a bit of a drop-off after the top 14, and I’ve currently got West Virginia and Michigan St. rounding out my top 16.

My 5 and 6 seeds are all very close, and will likely reorder with every result from the group. The teams on my top 8 lines are all mostly locks at this point, although that probably has more to do with how thin the resumes get for my last 4 byes, and last 4 in. We end up with teams that really don’t have a lot of wins against the tournament field, which is why I feel better about Providence and Rutger’s chances despite their flaws (bad losses and inadequate road record respectively).

I feel bad for Minnesota and Purdue, both of which have enough good wins to make the field (and potentially advance in the tournament). However, they have so many losses that I don’t think the committee will reward them until they can get a few games above .500.