It took a while, but the rest of the Bracketology world seems to have come around to embracing our conclusion that Florida is a solid 1-seed. Almost every Bracket Matrix participant has the Gators a top seed now, along with Auburn and Duke. Florida beat Alabama on the road and Ole Miss at home to finish 27-4, which matched Auburn after the Tigers dropped their last two games to Texas A&M and Alabama. Despite similar records and the fact that Florida beat Auburn (this also applies to Duke!) the Tigers are the overall 1-seed due to outrageous number of big wins. They're only 1-3 against the other 1-seeds but have 16 Quad-1 wins. The Tide will have to console themselves with being a hair ahead of Tennessee in the 1-seed race.
At-lg %Change Total Seed Rank Team Conf Rec %Odds -3dy -1wk 1seed %Odds Now -3dy -1wk 1. Auburn SEC 27-4 100.0 0.0 0.0 99.0 100.0 1 1 1 2. Florida SEC 27-4 100.0 0.0 0.0 91.4 100.0 1 1 1 3. Duke ACC 28-3 100.0 0.0 0.0 88.4 100.0 1 1 1 4. Alabama SEC 24-7 100.0 0.0 0.0 52.2 100.0 1 2 2 5. Tennessee SEC 25-6 100.0 0.0 0.0 48.2 100.0 2 1 1 6. Houston B12 27-4 100.0 0.0 0.0 18.0 100.0 2 2 2 7. Kentucky SEC 21-10 100.0 0.0 +0.1 1.4 100.0 2 2 2 8. Michigan St. B10 26-5 100.0 0.0 +0.1 1.6 100.0 2 2 2
The Bracket Matrix didn't come around to our view of Houston, which we therefore assume is going to be wrong. It makes sense as the Cougars are #3 in the NET rankings despite being #10 in our Success rankings, which is what is holding them back in the Dance Chance. Winning the Big Twelve tournament might get them into our 1-line, but might not be enough to pass two SEC teams depending on what happens in that league's tournament. It looks pretty certain that we are going to show three SEC teams as 1-seeds come Selection Sunday. The Cougars' losses to Auburn and Alabama in November don't help their cause either. Another SEC team, Kentucky, is currently a 2-seed rather than the consensus St. John's. Algorithms don't care as much as humans do when "there are too many {conferenceName} teams in the top ten!"
At-lg %Change Total Seed Rank Team Conf Rec %Odds -3dy -1wk 1seed %Odds Now -3dy -1wk 24. Georgia SEC 20-11 94.0 +7.9 +15.1 0.0 94.1 6 8 8 33. Arkansas SEC 19-12 83.3 +11.8 +24.7 0.0 83.5 9 9 10
The SEC also has two of the top upward-moving teams in the Dance Chance. Both Georgia and Arkansas pretty much sealed the deal for themselves over the last week or so. The Bulldogs won 4 in a row at the end, with South Carolina and Vanderbilt in the last seven days. Arkansas also topped Vandy as well as Mississippi State, part of a 25% jump that puts them in pretty safe territory.
I'm going to do a separate Bubble analysis, so I'll skip a large chunk of the projection here...
Below are teams that fell off the bubble in the last regular-season week. Most have a chance to redeem themselves and at the very least improve their at-large odds, but Nebraska is not one of those as the Cornhuskers failed to even qualify for the Big Ten tournament (which oddly takes 15, not 16 of the 18 conference teams). As we posited several days ago, they are left to be judged as a 17-14 team, full stop. A week ago at 17-12 it looked pretty certain they'd win at least one of two remaining games, but they lost to Ohio State in double overtime on the road, and to Iowa at home, 83-68. As bad as that was, Cincinnati's odds dropped even worse, from about 40% to 5.6% with losses to Kansas State and cellar-dwelling Oklahoma State. The only good thing is they have the conference tournament in their future, where their first opponent is again Oklahoma State.
At-lg %Change Total Seed Rank Team Conf Rec %Odds -3dy -1wk 1seed %Odds Now -3dy -1wk 58. Nebraska B10 17-14 18.0 -14.2 -20.1 0.0 18.0 59. SMU ACC 22-9 17.7 -9.4 -14.6 0.0 20.4 63. Cincinnati B12 17-14 5.6 -15.8 -33.9 0.0 7.2 64. Villanova BE 18-13 4.9 -4.5 -15.0 0.0 8.7 65. North Texas Amer 23-7 3.7 -11.1 -14.6 0.0 16.7 66. Northwestern B10 16-15 3.1 -1.8 -11.9 0.0 4.4
SMU fell off the bubble due to their loss to Florida State after beating Syracuse by 2 points; as the 6-seed, they'll rematch the winner of those teams in the 2nd round of the ACC tournament, then they'd get a shot at Clemson. That would be enough to put them back on the bubble, and with only three (3) ACC teams in the Dance right now, that might be enough (though North Carolina and Wake Forest are in line ahead of them). Villanova played only once last week, losing to Georgetown and that was enough to crush their odds by 75%, from 20% to 5%. They play Seton Hall in the first round with UConn waiting.
North Texas was trying to build a case for an at-large from the American Athletic, but losing to Temple set them back quite a bit more than their 7-game win streak did to promote them. Now under 5% odds, the Mean Green might rematch Temple in their first conference tournament game, then probably face UAB before Memphis. It seems that winning the AAC title is their only path.
And Northwestern finished above .500 but just barely, hence their tiny odds down 11.9% from last week when they at least had "hope points" based on the chance of beating either UCLA or Maryland. Neither happened. The Dance Chance is now a "snapshot" rather than a projection, so future hope doesn't count for anything in the odds. The Wildcats did qualify for the Big Ten tournament so all hope is not yet lost. They have a very winnable game first (Minnesota), then they run into Wisconsin, UCLA, and probably Michigan State before the finals. So their odds could rocket upward and they'd be 20-15 by then. It's not likely but it's a better scenario than confronts Nebraska right now.
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