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Fieldhouse Flyer wrote:Bracketology – Joe Lunardi – January 19, 2017 (30 minutes ago)

# 1 - Villanova
# 3 – Creighton
# 3 - Butler
# 6 – Xavier
# 12 – Seton Hall (play-in game)

Butler moves up one place, Seton Hall down one place, and still no love for Marquette.

The fact that he still has Seton Hall in is just evidence of the ever-weakening bubble. Every year seems to be "the softest bubble we've ever seen" and this year appears no different.

That being said, I wouldn't be too upset about this draw. The 1st 4 isn't ideal, but K-State doesn't scare me at all and the Pirates already played the Gators very tight in Florida - no reason they couldn't win a rematch on a true neutral floor (would they even be allowed to play each other that early?). UVA would be tough but their slow pace should allow the Hall to hang around and have a shot at the end.

Lunardi with 6....
Nova 1 seed East- pretty favorable draw until RSF round where WVU/Duke winner(what a rd 2 game) would await
Marquette 12 seed west(last team in)- FF game with Texas Tech, then Purdue, Virginia in Greenville
Xavier 6 seed west. tough 1st weekend draw with Miami and then Oregon. But if they survived that- a great region IMO after that.
Creighton 4 seed MW. Would see Cincy in rd 2. Win there and Kansas in RSF.
Seton Hall 10 seed MW. Would see Indiana and Arizona- in Salt Lake City. tough draw.
Butler 3 seed south. Maryland rd 2 tough draw. But like Xavier- if they survive there- get either FSU or SMU in RSF.

All in all pretty good. Xavier needs to start winning to keep out of that 7-10 seed wasteland where you see a good team in rd 2(often times in a road game almost).

stever20 wrote:Butler 3 seed south. Maryland rd 2 tough draw. But like Xavier- if they survive there- get either FSU or SMU in RSF.

Not a fan of this hypothetical bracket. Maryland would be a bad matchup for Butler.

milksteak wrote:

stever20 wrote:Butler 3 seed south. Maryland rd 2 tough draw. But like Xavier- if they survive there- get either FSU or SMU in RSF.

Not a fan of this hypothetical bracket. Maryland would be a bad matchup for Butler.

yeah that's what I thought. I think the winner of that game probably beats FSU/SMU in the sweet 16 round.

what would suck for Butler especially are the other 6 seeds. 1 is Xavier so can't play them. But the other 2 are St Mary's and Florida. I'd MUCH rather play either one of those vs Maryland.

Two A-10 teams in the field:

• #8 Dayton (auto-bid)
• #11 VCU

Man, the A-10 sucks these days.

milksteak wrote:Two A-10 teams in the field:

• #8 Dayton (auto-bid)
• #11 VCU

Man, the A-10 sucks these days.

yeah. At least with the AAC they have also 2 teams but they are 5 and 7 seeds(and trending up). If one of those teams didn't win the Conference tourney, they'd get 3 in easily. A10 if someone won besides Dayton, VCU could be out pretty easily. Rhode Island yet again didn't live up to their promise(what is that the billionth year that has happened?)

milksteak wrote:Two A-10 teams in the field:

• #8 Dayton (auto-bid)
• #11 VCU

Man, the A-10 sucks these days.

The A-10 was pretty frequently a 2 bid league for most of our time in there.

milksteak wrote:

Hall2012 wrote:I'm obviously biased, but I'd take Seton Hall's resume over all 4 teams that Lunardi gave his last 4 byes to over them. Especially Oklahoma State, who doesn't have a win over anyone remotely close to the field of 68.

I kinda see the same issue with VCU. They lack a signature win (a sub-.500 Princeton is their best win), but they are somehow in the field of 68. Princeton is in the field as an auto-bid, but they are looking pretty shaky so far this season. Princeton has disappointed me more than almost any team. I thought they would be really, really good this year.

EDIT: The win over VCU win over LSU was okay too, but it's light years away from being "signature."

Middle Tennessee

scoscox wrote:The A-10 was pretty frequently a 2 bid league for most of our time in there.

The A-10 getting more than 2 or 3 in the tournament was never sustainable. They'll be a 1-bid league as often as they'll be 4 or 5.