The Holy Land of Hoops

Ran across this neat matrix that summarizes 38 brackets out there. The consensus of 38 different "experts" right now have Villanova as the top 2 seed, Creighton a 5 seed, Xavier a 9 and Georgetown a 10. Marquette named in two brackets, and no one else gets a sniff.

http://www.bracketmatrix.com/

Sounds right to me. We need a team like Butler or SJU to step up and finish a couple games above .500, five teams sounds a lot better than four.

So far the additions of Xavier and Creighton were huge for this season.

Sounds about right for the time being.. Georgetown 4th team with a 1st rd bye. Getting close to a 11 seed though.

Only 14 teams out from the main bracket getting at large bids from what I can tell. Means it could be possible for someone to play their way at least on the bubble, if not in the tournament. That number seems very low at this point of the season to me.

The composite projections put out by Bracket Matrix are actually pretty good at predicting the field, better than most individual bracketologies.

Quick rundown on the matrix, as of 1/13

Big 10 and Big 12 each with 7 in
ACC with 6 in
A-10 and Pac 12 with 5 in
American, Big East and SEC with 4 in
Mountain West with 2
A whole bunch with 1 in.

HoosierPal wrote:Quick rundown on the matrix, as of 1/13

Big 10 and Big 12 each with 7 in
ACC with 6 in
A-10 and Pac 12 with 5 in
American, Big East and SEC with 4 in
Mountain West with 2
A whole bunch with 1 in.

Just looking- American has 5 in right now(SMU last team in the tourney- can't believe I'm saying that!)

All 36 at large bids in those 9 conferences.

stever20 wrote:

HoosierPal wrote:Quick rundown on the matrix, as of 1/13

Big 10 and Big 12 each with 7 in
ACC with 6 in
A-10 and Pac 12 with 5 in
American, Big East and SEC with 4 in
Mountain West with 2
A whole bunch with 1 in.

Just looking- American has 5 in right now(SMU last team in the tourney- can't believe I'm saying that!)

All 36 at large bids in those 9 conferences.

You are right, my bad. With all this realignment, sometimes I forget who goes where. The danger for the 36 at large teams is upsets in their tourneys. Those upsets will nibble away at the 36 at large bids. Prime candidate is the Valley. If Wichita State does not win the Valley tourney, they most certain will make the Big Dance + the Valley tourney winner. So 2 to 4 of those at large bids need to be reserved for Tourney upset winners.

No way that both the American and A10 get 5 in the tourney. At least 1 will get 4, maybe both. I wouldn't be shocked if the A10 got 3. I've been burned by "fast starts" of teams in that league before.

xu155 wrote:No way that both the American and A10 get 5 in the tourney. At least 1 will get 4, maybe both. I wouldn't be shocked if the A10 got 3. I've been burned by "fast starts" of teams in that league before.

I remember one year, Xavier was the lowest of three ranked A10 teams in January. By March, they were the only one of those teams going to the dance.

xu155 wrote:No way that both the American and A10 get 5 in the tourney. At least 1 will get 4, maybe both. I wouldn't be shocked if the A10 got 3. I've been burned by "fast starts" of teams in that league before.

At this point I'm thinking SLU, UMass, and GW are pretty solid NCAA teams. VCU is close to being solid, but they can't stumble much more. Dayton may have an outside shot if they pick up, but I'm not sure I can see that happening.

In the AAC, they are performing much better than I thought they would before the year started. Louisville, Memphis, Cinci are all looking solid. UConn, SMU, and Houston are all question marks in my mind (but I admittedly haven't followed them that closely).