Bracketology 2017: Final field for Selection Sunday
A look at the final Bracketology setup before Selection Sunday hits
Let’s just get right to it in our final bracketology column before Selection Sunday.
Last Four In:
Syracuse, USC, Wake Forest, Rhode Island
First Four Out:
Kansas State, Illinois State, California, Georgia
The Orange have done enough to make the Big Dance, winning 10 games in the ACC and beating three Top 10 teams — Florida State, Virginia and Duke — in the process. The most important win of the team’s season was essentially a play-in game against Georgia Tech, and Syracuse won 90-61.
I have Syracuse playing USC to make it into the East Region. The Trojans have two good wins (SMU, UCLA), and beating the Bruins in the conference tournament would have gone a long way, but I’ll take them over 13-loss Kansas State. The Wildcats did beat Baylor twice and best West Virginia in January, but Kansas State has one of the more disastrous losses of the season — a 30-point shellacking by Oklahoma — weighing down its campaign.
John Collins and Wake Forest could have done more down the stretch, finishing 3-10 against the RPI Top 50, but four March wins in a row before a difficult loss to Virginia Tech at the Barclays Center gives the ACC a 10th team. Beating Louisville on March 1 was essential to its candidacy.
Rhode Island got into the A-10 championship game after Davidson came on and upset Dayton on Friday. Give me the 23-win Rams — who have a nice win over Cincinnati on a neutral court — over Illinois State and California. The Redbirds fell out of the conversation after losing by 20 and 41 points to Wichita State, not putting up a fight in two out of three matchups against its only true competition this season.
On to the bracket…
East Region
(1) Villanova vs. (16) Mount St. Mary’s/North Carolina Central
(2) Duke vs. (15) UC Irvine
(3) Florida State vs. (14) Winthrop
(4) Notre Dame vs. (13) Princeton
(5) Florida vs. (12) Wake Forest/Rhode Island
(6) Creighton vs. (11) Syracuse/USC
(7) Maryland vs. (10) Providence
(8) Miami vs. (9) Wichita State
Villanova is my top overall seed after compiling an 12-2 record against the RPI Top 50, losing only to Butler and Marquette, a pair of tournament teams. The Wildcats recovered after losing to the Bulldogs on Feb. 22 by winning six straight games, including a confident 74-60 win in the Big East championship game at Madison Square Garden on Saturday.
Kudos to Providence doing plenty at the end of the year to get seven teams in from the Big East. The Friars won six in a row prior to the conference tournament before a forgivable loss to the Creighton Bulldogs.
Jumping no less than five lines over the course of February and March, the Duke Blue Devils are as dangerous a team as any in the Big Dance. Its wins over Louisville and North Carolina in the ACC Tournament were affirming.
A second round matchup between the Fighting Irish and the Florida Gators is pure basketball theatre. Florida finished 8-8 against the RPI Top 50 — evidence of an up-and-down season that saw the Gators fall down a line or two after losing to Kentucky and twice to Vanderbilt late in the season.
Creighton did enough to stay on the sixth line despite a 5-6 record over its last 11 games. Beating Butler on the road, 76-67, on Jan. 31 — in the wake of the Maurice Watson Jr.’s injury — was one of the most important individual resume building wins for any team in the tournament. A potential shootout between the Bulldogs and the Orange is a first round matchup I’d love to see.
Miami/Wichita State is an exercise in what constructing a tournament out of this field can look like. All the Hurricanes did was win 10 games in the ACC, go 21-11 overall, and beat North Carolina and Duke. But a 9-11 record against the RPI Top 100 coupled with an early exit in the ACC tournament put a ceiling on what seed Miami could truly vie for.
And then there is Wichita State. The team lost four games, all against RPI Top 100 schools, and ran through its lower to mid-tier conference with only one hiccup. Ranked eighth by KenPom in terms of adjusted efficiency margin, the Shockers, a tournament darling from yesteryear, could have made the field of 68 with or without winning its conference. But is Wichita State’s resume good enough to eclipse the doomed Nos. 8/9 matchup? I said no.
Midwest Region
(1) Kansas vs. (16) Texas Southern
(2) Oregon vs. (15) Northern Kentucky
(3) UCLA vs. (14) CSU Bakersfield
(4) Butler vs. (13) Vermont
(5) Purdue vs. (12) UT Arlington
(6) Saint Mary’s vs. (11) Marquette
(7) Virginia Tech vs. (10) Michigan State
(8) Northwestern vs. (9) South Carolina
Aside from an embarrassing early exit to TCU in the Big 12 Tournament, the Kansas Jayhawks, top to bottom, have an incredible resume. A 16-4 record against the RPI Top 100 features wins over Duke and Kentucky away from Allen Fieldhouse.
The news that Oregon senior Chris Boucher has a torn ACL and will miss the rest of the season is crushing for the Ducks. Boucher was averaging 11.8 points, 6.1 rebounds and 2.5 blocks for the Ducks, and his sudden departure left Oregon without a key piece in the Pac-12 championship game against Arizona. A victory might have been enough to lift Oregon into the No. 1 seed conversation over North Carolina.
As NCAA Tournament selection chair Mark Hollis told CBS Sports, injuries can impact a team’s seeding, but how the Ducks will be penalized without Boucher is anybody’s guess.
UCLA nearly got itself onto the second line, but a dud performance against Arizona in the Pac-12 tournament killed those chances. Lonzo Ball appears to have injured his left thumb in the loss, and while the program is not making excuses, the Bruins need Ball operating at full capacity to have a chance of making it out of the region.
Losing to Michigan in the conference tournament was deflating for Purdue, who had won 8 of 9 games since February 1. The team’s neutral court win over Notre Dame has never looked better, and the Boilermakers could have pushed UCLA off the third line with a trip to the Big Ten championship.
Losing three times to Gonzaga and once to anybody else — a tournament team, UT Arlington, no less — was about as well as Saint Mary’s could do with a weak schedule. Watching Virginia Tech from the Barclays Center this week, I came away very impressed by Zach LeDay and Seth Allen, and the Hokies put themselves over Miami in my ACC rankings.
Tortured Northwestern fans need not worry after the Wildcats won a pair of Big Ten Tournament games to secure an at-large bid to the Big Dance, the first in school history. On the other end of the spectrum, Michigan State fans remain spoiled during Tom Izzo’s wonderful run with the Spartans. Going 6-5 in February and March, as well as losing to Minnesota in its second game of the Big Ten tournament, Michigan State mostly benefits from a historically weak bubble, but nonetheless the team will make the Big Dance.
South Region
(1) North Carolina vs. (16) Jacksonville State
(2) Kentucky vs. (15) Iona
(3) Louisville vs. (14) Bucknell
(4) SMU or Cincinnati vs. (13) East Tennessee State
(5) Minnesota vs. (12) UNC Wilmington
(6) Iowa State vs. (11) Xavier
(7) Virginia vs. (10) Vanderbilt
(8) Arkansas vs. (9) Seton Hall
En Elite Eight showdown between Kentucky and Louisville should be mandatory, but Iowa State/Virginia would have a ton to say about that in this potential region. Louisville lost an exhilarating quarterfinal — QUARTERFINAL — matchup against Duke in the ACC Tournament, or else the Cardinals would likely be on the second line.
Win or lose for Kentucky against Arkansas in the SEC championship game on Sunday, the Wildcats are a No. 2 seed. What would be interesting is how the Razorbacks winning the biggest game of their season, and automatically moving up to the seventh line, would shake up the rest of the bracket. My pick would be moving Michigan — as happy as we all are that everybody is OK — down to the eighth line.
The SMU Mustangs have not lost since Jan. 12 against Cincinnati on the road, 66-64. But during its 15-game winning streak, SMU beat Cincinnati, 60-51, on Feb. 12. So it comes down to the AAC championship game on Sunday. The Mustangs have only beaten one RPI Top 50 team, however, whereas the Bearcats can claim wins over Iowa State and Xavier. All that means is Cincinnati fans will have louder dissenting arguments if SMU gets the better seed because of a win on Sunday.
Iowa State have won 10 out of 11 games to go from fringe bubble team to Big 12 champion. To have only a No. 6 seed to show for it is tough luck, but Minnesota has a better record against the RPI Top 50 (8-6 vs. 6-7) and deserves its No. 5 seed. The Gophers beat Purdue, Northwestern and Maryland on the road in the Big Ten, which counters Iowa State’s road win shootouts over Kansas and Oklahoma State.
I could be talked into dropping the loser of SMU/Cincinnati to the sixth line in order to push Iowa State up. But if the conversation is Minnesota or Iowa State, the Gophers have done a little bit more.
Three wins against Florida — plus victories over Iowa State, Arkansas and South Carolina — got Vanderbilt in the tournament comfortably despite 14 losses.
West Region
(1) Gonzaga vs. (16) New Orleans/South Dakota State
(2) Arizona vs. (15) North Dakota
(3) Baylor vs. (14) Florida Gulf Coast
(4) West Virginia vs. (13) Akron
(5) SMU or Cincinnati vs. (12) Nevada
(6) Wisconsin vs. (11) Middle Tennessee
(7) Michigan vs. (10) Dayton
(8) VCU vs. (9) Oklahoma State
Gonzaga retains its No. 1 seed by winning its conference tournament despite losing to BYU in February. A 9-4 record against the RPI Top 50 and wins over Oregon, Louisville and West Virginia were plenty for Baylor to keep a No. 3 seed.
Wisconsin making a run in the conference tournament went a long way to retaining a No. 6 seed. Losing five out of six games before beating Minnesota on March 5 threatened to undo an outstanding January, and the Badgers, even still, only have five good wins all season. Win or lose against Michigan in the Big Ten title game, Wisconsin will finish ahead of the Wolverines.
A three-game losing streak to close the season — at Iowa State, Kansas, Iowa State — put a damper on Oklahoma State’s wonderful February (6-2). Divorced from a hot stretch, the Cowboys have a flawed resume, but enough chips to cash in to make the field. Oklahoma State might deserve more than a No. 9 seed if Arkansas — a team it conquered, 99-71, on Jan. 28 — slays Kentucky in the SEC title game.