Week of 2/16 Bracketology
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Am i insane to think we might have a claim to a higher spot than houston?
Better NET, better Kenpom
Our Q1 wins vs theirs, advantage us
Illnois: 8,11,17,19,25,38,52
Houston: 17,18,21,34,47,49,63
Our median quad one 1 is 19, theres is 34
We've beaten 5 top 25 NETs, theyve beaten 3
We have 3 wins as good or better than their best win
They have an adv in quad 2 with 8 wins to 5, and no losses
Illinois: 32,50,59,78,133 and a loss vs 35 (but down 2 starters)
Houston: 46,62,63,67,72, 84,86
I'd assume the loss in Q2 for us is what propels them past us...bc i really hope beating up a bunch of teams 60-90 isnt impressing the committee enough to outweigh us having better q1 wins
Better NET, better Kenpom
Our Q1 wins vs theirs, advantage us
Illnois: 8,11,17,19,25,38,52
Houston: 17,18,21,34,47,49,63
Our median quad one 1 is 19, theres is 34
We've beaten 5 top 25 NETs, theyve beaten 3
We have 3 wins as good or better than their best win
They have an adv in quad 2 with 8 wins to 5, and no losses
Illinois: 32,50,59,78,133 and a loss vs 35 (but down 2 starters)
Houston: 46,62,63,67,72, 84,86
I'd assume the loss in Q2 for us is what propels them past us...bc i really hope beating up a bunch of teams 60-90 isnt impressing the committee enough to outweigh us having better q1 wins
You're not insane. But they do have a better average of BPI, KenPom, and Torvik, so I'd like to see us jump them in that to feel like we have a stronger claim.
Houston and Florida is a nightmare. I feel like these are two of our worst matchups.
I want to believe but this is the second year it's been officially used. I hope they prove me wrong. That Wisconsin game being a 1.0 swing would have made it all moot
If we end up as the 2 in the BTT, I would rather play the 7th seed in the quarters and the 3 seed in the Semis for the reason that the margin between the 1 seed and the 2 seed is razor thin with us battling UConn, Houston, Michigan and IA St. We need to play the best to impress the Committee.
I want to believe but this is the second year it's been officially used. I hope they prove me wrong. That Wisconsin game being a 1.0 swing would have made it all moot
It has been said (by committee members) that the committee takes injuries into account. To what extent, nobody knows. Seems like this exercise by media members is NOT considering our many injuries over the course of the season (Boswell out 7 games, Tomi out 3 games, Andrej out 3 games-> those are 3 of starting 5 missing half our games this year).
They will not put Houston playing in Houston in the Regionals or they shouldn’t. We have already been screwed playing UK in Lexington back in 84. They created a rule to stop this
Battle89
- Cary-Grove, the better Trojan team
I find it difficult to reconcile posters here who say that the committee can't possibly have contingency brackets as it is too time-consuming or hard, but yet tracking many (all?) teams' injuries over 30+ games, and accounting for those in at least one bracket, is doable.
This is not personally directed at @NarrowJ or any other individual.
My feeling is that contingency brackets are created, when the outcome of the final game would have a material impact on seeding or locations. And that injuries are used more after the fact to justify decisions made for any reason, rather than proactively (and probably mostly only involving a smaller set of teams at the top).
This is not personally directed at @NarrowJ or any other individual.
My feeling is that contingency brackets are created, when the outcome of the final game would have a material impact on seeding or locations. And that injuries are used more after the fact to justify decisions made for any reason, rather than proactively (and probably mostly only involving a smaller set of teams at the top).
To add to this (and this response is also not directed at any individual poster)...
My interpretation of the committee taking injuries into account has to do with teams who have had players miss very significant chunks of time during the season (think like 2 months... e.g. Gonzaga and Huff, if he comes back and they dominate with him) or teams who have lost a key piece for the rest of the season (Texas Tech, BYU) and likely dropping them a seed line. For example, even this mock committee had Texas Tech as a 6 seed. I don't think they were on the 6 line prior to Toppin going down.
I think a certain number of injuries and missed games are expected throughout the course of the season and balances out among the teams. So things like Andrej and Tomi missing a couple of games means next to nothing to the committee as that happens to a lot of teams throughout the season.
I fully acknowledge the Huff example isn't the best but it's all I could come up with right now. And as I said, this is a complete guess, but they dropped Cincy to a 2-seed when Kenyon went down in 2000 as the first example I can explicitly remember of an injury impacting a team's seeding.
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Florida being behind Kansas and Purdue makes zero sense.
There are only two major conference tourneys that end on Sunday, the B1G and the SEC. The other 3 wouldn’t affect much other than the automatic qualifier. And the committee will know by Saturday night who is playing Sunday and if those games would even matter.
In my mind, it isn’t that hard to have a Plan B, C, D and E (for the 4 scenarios for the B1G plus SEC outcomes) in hand by Sunday morning. Heck, the Lunardis of the world will, so how hard can it be?
I would only create those plans as they affect a top 4 seed or, of course, an auto bid for a team that would not have gotten an at-large bid.
In my mind, it isn’t that hard to have a Plan B, C, D and E (for the 4 scenarios for the B1G plus SEC outcomes) in hand by Sunday morning. Heck, the Lunardis of the world will, so how hard can it be?
I would only create those plans as they affect a top 4 seed or, of course, an auto bid for a team that would not have gotten an at-large bid.
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ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
I love how this discussion point happens at great length literally every year.
The idea that there is this game that for practical timing reasons just exists beyond the committee's reach deeply appeals to a certain personality type and deeply bothers another personality type.
A lot of debates, in sports and elsewhere, come down to that sort of thing.
I don't think I have shared an opinion on contingency brackets, but I suppose I would find it hard to believe that there's just zero plan for a potentially huge game that occurs right before the bracket is released if said game has implications on seeding.
Illwinsagain
- Cary, IL
I just have to say, it would be a heck of a lot of fun to be on this committee, or even, to just be a fly on the wall and watch the madness before the Madness.
This team is getting better and more confident by the day. Anyone, anywhere, any time, EXCEPT UK at Rupp.
https://www.reddit.com/r/CollegeBasketball/comments/1r9ze2v/championship_dna_week_10/
The other team worth diving into right now is Illinois, who would currently rank as the 13th best offense to enter the tournament since 2002, and clear and away the best this season. They have consistently been a topic of conversation around here because of their position in just the ‘Solid’ archetype, with Illini fans willing to throw out this entire exercise simply on that basis alone. I understand that response, but I do want to give some context to the Illinois profile specifically, as they now are at their highest offensive rating to date. When I look at the data set I see a range of teams from Elite all the way to Matadors, with around this level of offense, so if we remove the extremes, as I don’t think the Illini defense will get to Elite but also doubt it falls all the way to matador, we get some interesting data. It pairs down to just 7 teams > 128 Net++, with 3 better than Illinois and 3 slightly below. The 3 above were all around 130 or higher, and 2 of them made it to the title game, with 1 falling in the Elite 8. In the 128 Net++ group that is closer to where Illinois is at right now, it’s a bit more varied, with 1 team winning it all (2015 Duke), one losing in the Sweet 16 and another exiting in the 2nd round. All 6 of those teams ranged from Great to Strong Enough with varied defenses. That’s the closest analytical comps we can come up with. I do think it tells us their ceiling is probably higher than a general ‘Solid’ team because of that explosive offensive ability, but you still see the variation in results that make you hesitate a bit. All in all, if I was choosing my title contenders today, I would draw a line from Nebraska to Purdue, and everyone to the right of it would be my list. That’s 7 teams, with Illinois just sliding in there as a 7th alongside the Elite/Great teams."
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The other team worth diving into right now is Illinois, who would currently rank as the 13th best offense to enter the tournament since 2002, and clear and away the best this season. They have consistently been a topic of conversation around here because of their position in just the ‘Solid’ archetype, with Illini fans willing to throw out this entire exercise simply on that basis alone. I understand that response, but I do want to give some context to the Illinois profile specifically, as they now are at their highest offensive rating to date. When I look at the data set I see a range of teams from Elite all the way to Matadors, with around this level of offense, so if we remove the extremes, as I don’t think the Illini defense will get to Elite but also doubt it falls all the way to matador, we get some interesting data. It pairs down to just 7 teams > 128 Net++, with 3 better than Illinois and 3 slightly below. The 3 above were all around 130 or higher, and 2 of them made it to the title game, with 1 falling in the Elite 8. In the 128 Net++ group that is closer to where Illinois is at right now, it’s a bit more varied, with 1 team winning it all (2015 Duke), one losing in the Sweet 16 and another exiting in the 2nd round. All 6 of those teams ranged from Great to Strong Enough with varied defenses. That’s the closest analytical comps we can come up with. I do think it tells us their ceiling is probably higher than a general ‘Solid’ team because of that explosive offensive ability, but you still see the variation in results that make you hesitate a bit. All in all, if I was choosing my title contenders today, I would draw a line from Nebraska to Purdue, and everyone to the right of it would be my list. That’s 7 teams, with Illinois just sliding in there as a 7th alongside the Elite/Great teams."
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Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
I agree overall, and that is why I pretty much said that with my first sentence! However, anybody can have an off day, and I wouldn't complain if this well-oiled machine of ours just happened to also get a bit of a dream path.
Self note that I've been doing this with my weekly metrics bracket updates. Resume metrics affect who earns a spot in the bracket, efficiency metrics determine seeding. Seems more than fair.
Looks like they leaned into the resume metrics too much on that one
Illinicpa14
- Chicago
Agree - I do think the Boswell injury would be a “consideration” but I also think it likely doesn’t impact our specific scenario.
We win out, 1 seed is probably there
If we don’t, great shape for a 2 seed barring playing horrible the next 5 games.
My key observation looking at most bracket projections is the drop-off in the middle of the 3 seeds, aka the top 10. The top 10 (though I'd personally swap Florida for Nebraska) are all really tough. I think Nebraska and MSU are on a downward trajectory and Gonzaga isn't proven. TTU is pretty much sank without Toppin playing. Looking at our potential sweet 16 opponent, I really want to avoid Kansas and Florida. In bracketmatrix they're the top two 3 seeds. I really hope we get one of the two weaker 3 seeds, which would theoretically require us to finish top 6, but they don't seem to strictly follow the true seeding that much.
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
Also, just as a reminder for a general idea of when the Illini would play based on where we might end up, these are the First Weekend sites by the days of the games. Another reminder, the First Weekend sites are NOT tied to a certain Region of the bracket. As an example, our Milwaukee site last year had two First Round games from the Midwest Regional (Illinois/Xavier and Kentucky/Troy) and two games from the South Regional (Iowa State/Lipscomb and Ole Miss/North Carolina).
Thursday, March 19 & Saturday, March 21
Oklahoma City, OK
Buffalo, NY
Greenville, SC
Portland, OR
Friday, March 20 & Sunday, March 22
St. Louis, MO
Philadelphia, PA
Tampa, FL
San Diego, CA
And then things might get reshuffled based on where you are for the First Weekend, but these are the locations by date for the Second Weekend games.
Thursday, March 26 & Saturday, March 28
Houston, TX
San Jose, CA
Friday, March 27 & Sunday, March 29
Chicago, IL
Washington, DC
Thursday, March 19 & Saturday, March 21
Oklahoma City, OK
Buffalo, NY
Greenville, SC
Portland, OR
Friday, March 20 & Sunday, March 22
St. Louis, MO
Philadelphia, PA
Tampa, FL
San Diego, CA
And then things might get reshuffled based on where you are for the First Weekend, but these are the locations by date for the Second Weekend games.
Thursday, March 26 & Saturday, March 28
Houston, TX
San Jose, CA
Friday, March 27 & Sunday, March 29
Chicago, IL
Washington, DC
If the Braden Huff injury gets consideration (expected back for NCAA tournament) then he will have missed a total of about 13 games - the same number of games KB/Andrej/Tomi have missed. So if they consider that but not our situation then I suppose it just feels a little unfair.
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