The 1st Bracketology for 2015

[stever20]

Providence is one the "Last Four Out". If things break right there is no reason we can't get 5 teams in.

hunch is the way he's got it set up- St John's/PC would be a BET 4/5 game where winner is in and loser is out.

seeds are horrible- Georgetown and Xavier with 8/9 which are the worst ones to get.

And If St. John's and PC win a few quality games and avoid bad losses in non-conference play, finish around 9-9 in conference play, and have RPIs in the 40s-low 50s both would be in and this wouldn't be an elimination scenario.

It's pushing it. St John's would be 9-3 OOC(losing to Gonzaga,Syracuse, and Duke)- remember the Franklin Pearce game doesn't count as a win as it's not D1. 9-10(9-9 then the BET loss) would make them 18-13. not looking that good.
PC would be 11-2 OOC(losing to Kentucky and then splitting the 2 Florida games). Add 9-10 and they would be 20-12. That's bubble.

I'm guessing he's got St John's at 10-8 in conference with 9-3 OOC and then winning 1st rd. So total of 20-12- with the late head to head win getting them in the tourney over PC. Seems pretty realistic.

[gosports1]

before i read it let me guess he has 10 ACC 2 on the bubble and the rest in the NIT

[R Jay]

Actually the CBS article only has 7 ACC teams (if I counted correctly). The USA one has 8.

I can't say that I see this happening. I bet those ACC teams are just going to beat up on each other in conference play and a ton of them are going to go 9-9 or so. They might be lucky to get 4 teams in. Expansion is probably on the horizon if they can't improve.

[billyjack]

Providence is one the "Last Four Out". If things break right there is no reason we can't get 5 teams in.

hunch is the way he's got it set up- St John's/PC would be a BET 4/5 game where winner is in and loser is out.

seeds are horrible- Georgetown and Xavier with 8/9 which are the worst ones to get.

And If St. John's and PC win a few quality games and avoid bad losses in non-conference play, finish around 9-9 in conference play, and have RPIs in the 40s-low 50s both would be in and this wouldn't be an elimination scenario.

Plus, URI (PIG?) is playing at the Dunk this year, and the Friars (first 4 out?) have won the last 4+ meetings.
So if they end with similar RPI's, Providence will get picked ahead of them.
Same with UMass (last 8 out?), who also plays at the Dunk this year.

Basically, PC's 4 games vs the ACC are huge for them (3 bubble teams), and the conference. 2 are "neutral" games played 5 miles over the R.I. border; 1 is a neutral game in Brooklyn; and 1 is at BC where we will outnumber them. If we go 3-1, or *gulp*, 4-0, then the BE will be in fantastic shape.**

** I'm repeating this from last week, but only because some implausible scenarios are tossed around daily on different sites. If URI and UMass lose at the Dunk, then neither can slide in ahead of PC.

[BigEast1]

St. John's needs to at least split the 4 games between Duke, Syracuse, Minnesota and Gonzaga (if they play them, it could be Georgia). 3 of those are home games. I don't think having 9 wins in conference play will matter as much as whether teams have bad losses. St. John's last year won 10 conference games and 20 overall but still didn't dance b/c of some God awful losses (Penn St comes to mind & I think DePaul was another one).

[stever20]

St. John's needs to at least split the 4 games between Duke, Syracuse, Minnesota and Gonzaga (if they play them, it could be Georgia). 3 of those are home games. I don't think having 9 wins in conference play will matter as much as whether teams have bad losses. St. John's last year won 10 conference games and 20 overall but still didn't dance b/c of some God awful losses (Penn St comes to mind & I think DePaul was another one).

St John's didn't go to the tourney partially because they beat absolutely no one out of conference. Best OOC win was 16-17 Georgia Tech. Maybe w/o a Penn St loss(though then they would have played in the title vs Ole Miss)- it's different. Also, if they beat DePaul that changes the seeds a lot in the BET. St John's would be 3 and play 6 seed Marquette 1st round, while PC and Xavier would have played each other. St John's in with a win to the NCAA, but PC/Xavier would have been a knock out game for sure.

And at a certain point- having only 9 conference wins does matter. Having 9 conference wins means 9 conference losses. Add to that 2-3 in OOC play and then a loss in the BET and all of a sudden you are up to 12 or 13 losses. Last year there was 1 team with 13 losses at large in the tourney- NC State- last team in the tourney. Only 7 12 loss teams in the tourney and 3 were in the PIG. Nebraska was the 1st team with a bye and they had 12 losses. Year before 2 12 loss teams and 1 13 loss team made the tourney.

[hoyahooligan]

2 more preseason bracketology:http://collegebasketballtalk.nbcsports.com/2014/11/14/kentucky-holds-top-spot-in-2015-preseason-bracket/
Villanova 3 seed
Georgetown 10 seed
Xavier 12 seed PIG

St. John's last 5 out



and :
http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/bracketology

Villanova 3 seed
Georgetown 9 seed
Providence 11 seed PIG

St. John's first 4 out
Xavier next 4 out