Thoughts on Tuesdays win I still can't believe we were down 9 at half and by the 8 minute timeout I felt completely comfortable and no stress about cruising to a win. The win didn't do much from a metrics standpoint but good to avoid a loss, watch a few more teams around us take an L and keep chugging towards some huge quad 1A opportunities down the stretch to clinch a 2 seed or potentially even challenge for a 1.
If you are looking for a quick primer on A&M's seeding, my prognostication is roughly a finish in the last 7 games would be equal to the following seeds (subject to the rest of the national landscape so +/- 1 seed line
7-0 or 6-1 = 1 seed
5-2 = 2 seed
4-3 = 3 seed
3-4 = 4 seed
2-5 = 5 seed
1-6 = 7 seed
0-7 = 9 seed
Given we are comfortably in the field, I will keep this BW a bit more brief than prior years and focus the analysis on those near A&M's seed and around the last 4 in/out and the rest just list a ranking, but happy to talk more about each individual team in the more detailed posts.
This is just to get the conversation started. I will add some more detail on those near the cut line tomorrow.
1 Seeds
1) Auburn (Lock) clear #1 with an insane 13 quad 1 wins (no one else has more than 8)
2) Alabama (Lock) 6-1 in quad 1A games and a pretty clear #2
3) Duke (Lock) outstanding predictive numbers
4) Florida (Lock) Lacked the non conf SOS and high-end elite wins that the rest of the SEC had, until the last week winning at Auburn and at Mississippi State to for now claim the 4th
5) one seed.fbfb
2 Seeds
6) Tennessee (Lock) Even after losing on Tuesday night Tennessee has both a better resume than A&M and clearly better predictive #s. But the gap has closed considerably
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7) Texas A&M (Lock) Outstanding resume numbers (better than even Duke) but lagging predictive numbers (for a 2 seed). Ultimately it feels like A&M will get rewarded for going out of conference and racking up several high end wins on a neutral court (Purdue, Texas Tech, Creighton).
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8) Houston (Lock) Predictive metrics darling (#2, #1, #3), it will be interesting to see where the committee has them during the sneak peak reveal on Saturday morning. There are 38 teams that have at least 2 quad 1A wins this season. Houston is not one of those teams. Their lone Q1A is at Kansas which is great but beyond that…they have built their resume on pounding bad teams
9) Purdue (Lock) Very similar overall profile as A&M, A&M has a bit better on the resume numbers, Purdue has better predictives. I am glad A&M owns the head to head on a neutral (Indy) court.
3 Seeds
10) Iowa State (Lock) 7-4 vs quad 1, 9th in SOR, solid overall resume but still behind the top 8, the last team that feels currently in the same league as A&M if this was selection Sunday
11) Arizona (Lock) great predictives, subpar resume #s, didn't do much in non conference but has been elite in the Big 12
12) Michigan (Lock) - rocketing up the seed list particularly after knocking off Purdue, predictive numbers wont give them consideration for anything more than a 3 seed right now
13) Kentucky (Lock) 7 quad 1A wins ties Auburn for the most in the country. That number alone hides a lot of warts with this resume which otherwise would be a few spots lower.
4 Seeds
14) Wisconsin (Lock)
15) Texas Tech (Lock)
16) Kansas (Lock)
17) St. John's The loss to Villanova on Wednesday knocks them down a full seed line and they only have 1 quad 1 game left on the schedule
5 Seeds
18) Marquette
19) Ole Miss
20) Illinois
21) Michigan State
6 Seeds
22) UCLA
23) Missouri
24) Memphis
25) Clemson
7 Seeds
26) Louisville
27) UConn
28) Maryland
29) Creighton
8 Seeds
30) St. Mary's
31) Mississippi State
32) Baylor
33) Oregon
9 Seeds
34) Gonzaga
35) Utah State
36) New Mexico
37) Nebraska
10 Seeds
38) Ohio State
39) West Virginia
40) San Diego State
41) Drake (Missouri Valley Placeholder if they lose and drop out it does NOT open up a slot for someone else as MVC will still have a bid)
11 Seeds
42) Vanderbilt
43) Oklahoma
Last 4 in
44) SMU It is very rare a "power" conference team will have NCAAT worth numbers (top 45 across the board in resume and predictive, yet has not yet scored a single quad 1 win. But then again is the ACC really still a power conference?
45) Arkansas 3 quad 1A wins against Michigan, Kentucky and Texas all away from home, for now have the pigs in. Just 4-7 in the SEC, and if the magic number is 7 wins it is hard to find 3 more wins on this schedule without stealing one somewhere.
46) BYU pretty good predictive numbers for a bubble team, 3 quad 1 wins look nice but not all quad 1 are created equal UCF, West Virginia and Baylor don't exactly move the needle.
47) Georgia similar boat as Arkansas. The wins over Kentucky and St. John's are nice but the losses are piling up and at 4-8 in the SEC you have to squint a bit to see where they can pick up at least 2 more wins needed to have a case.
Projecting 22 one bid leagues regardless of conference tournaments, for spots 47-68 (will be adjusted for stolen bids and some at large bids above this line will go away)
One bid leagues
48) Atlantic 10 -note, several bubble teams that are out now could work their way in to make this a 2 bid league
49) Atlantic Sun
50) America East
51) Big Sky
52) Big South
53) Big West Note, 2 bubble teams that are OUT right now but could possibly win out and get at large consideration
54) Conference USA
55) Coastal
56) Horizon
57) Ivy
58) MAAC
59) MAC
60) MEAC
61) NEC
62) OVC
63) Patriot League
64) SWAC
65) Southern
66) Southland
67) Summit
68) Sun Belt
69) WAC
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70) Texas The horns have much better predictive number (29th in BPI!) than Georgia, Arkansas or even Vanderbilt but at a certain point it has to translate to wins and so far there haven't been enough of them for Texas. Really only 3 good wins to hang their hat on vs. A&M, Mizzou and at Oklahoma and not much even in the decent win category. The path here is to win the 3 @South Carolina, Georgia and Oklahoma, if they can do that they will be in the hunt. Given their lack of results in non conference, the magic number for Texas to get a bid may be 8 SEC wins however which means they may need 1 more in addition to those 3.
71) Wake Forest They were hanging their hat on the "no bad losses" thing and then they took a horrible loss on Wednesday night to Florida State on their home court. Those are the kind of losses that get brought up on Selection Sunday as the reason you are headed to the NIT. The resume numbers are not bad…the predictives are horrendous (71 in KenPom, 71 in Torvik). The rest of the schedule has 2 difficult games @SMU and @Duke, and a ton of just can't take a bad loss games. They need to go 5-1 in these last 6 to feel any kind of comfortable on Selection Sunday.
72) VCU Only 1 quad 1 win, earlier this year at Dayton, no quad 1 games left. Realistically they need to win out, including beating Dayton again and beating George Mason, both home games. If they do that they should be in as an at large. The predictive numbers (mid 30s) are already good enough to get in if they can boost the SOR (53) and WAB (57).
73) Indiana The Hoosiers got their biggest win of the year at Michigan State this week. No losses outside of Quad 1 but there are still some real stinkers in there (losing by 25 to Iowa, 28 to Louisville, 17 to Nebraska, 9 to Northwestern). The profile has some good to it (38th in KPI, and some bac 60th in Torvik). Hard to see this one NOT being one of the last 4 in/first 4 out.
74) North Carolina Similar profile as Indiana, 1 pretty good win (neutral court vs. UCLA) but ultimately just too many losses. They don't have as many bad blowout losses like the Hoosiers (except for this weeks stinker at Clemson) but they do have one black eye of the loss at home to Stanford (Quad 3). Only 1 Quad 1 game left, to end the season at home vs. Duke. The rest of the schedule is 4 quad 3s, a quad 4 and a quad 2. Vs. that weak schedule they probably need to win out to have a realistic chance.
75) Kansas State K State was left for dead in late January with a 7-11 record with only 1 of those wins better than quad 3. Since then they have won 6 straight including picking up 4 quad 1 wins. The profile has gotten a lot better but is still in the mid 50s across both resume and predictive numbers (2 quad 3 losses will do that) so they still have a ways to go. Not an easy remaining schedule with 4 quad 1 games left, but if they can split those and win the other 3 to get to 19 wins I like their chances.
76) UC San Diego Only played 4 games all year above quad 3, splitting with UC Irvine, winning at Utah State and losing at San Diego State. They also picked up 2 quad 3 losses along the way. They do have 1 quad 2 game left at CSUN. They absolutely have to win out to have any chance at an at large but if they do, their resume numbers which are currently in the mid 50s, may get good enough to give them a chance.
77) UC Irvine Similar situation as UCSD. In addition to splitting the season series with UCSD the lost their other quad 1 game at Oregon State and picked up 2 quad 2 wins at UNI and at CSUN. All quad 3 and 4 the rest of the way so they have to win out to have any chance. They are up to 35 in KPI but that feels like an anomaly (56 in SOR, 52 in WAB) and significantly worse in the predictives (99 in BPI. 68 in KenPom, 85 in Torvik).
78) San Francisco
79) George Mason
80) Cincinnati
81) USC
82) Boise State
83) UCF
84) Pitt
85) Xavier
86) Arizona state
87) Dayton
88) Villanova
89) Santa Clara
90) Iowa
91) TCU
92) Rutgers
93) Oregon State
94) Colorado State
95) Georgetown
These teams are not really in the same category as those above them, there is a considerable gap in profile strength but they are still technically alive since they have so many elite wins left on their schedule if they were to win out, but effectively there is no realistic path. Not eliminating them quite yet, since they can technically get to an at large
96) Northwestern
97) LSU
98) Utah
99) Washington
100) Penn state
101) Minnesota
102) Oklahoma State
103) South Carolina