Joe Lunardi Releases His Way-Too Early Bracketology

Submitted by maizenblue92 on

Lunardi released his way-too-early-its-almost-insane Bracketology for next year. He currently has us a 1 seed. The basis for this is he probably thinks that Nik is gone and Mitch/GR3 return. Other B1G teams: Wisky-1 seed, MSU-5 seed, Nebrasketball, Ohio, and Iowa are all 6 seeds, and Minnesota is an 8 seed. 

The most important thing for Michigan next year is not seeding but the region they are in. If they are in the Midwest a path to a NC could go Columbus/Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Indy. Basically homecourt throughout the tournament. Plus it would be nice to tear up Ohio on the way to a title

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

gwkrlghl

April 9th, 2014 at 3:57 PM ^

His work is basically "Take approximate rankings and conference leaders, put into bracket in almost exact order they are ranked". And he's not even good at it either. Must be nice to work like 40 hours a year.

Literally any of us could do his job.

eth2

April 9th, 2014 at 9:11 PM ^

Joe Lunardi has a full time job. He is a honcho in St. Joe's Marketing department and also works as an announcer for their basketball games. They were a client several years ago; met him a couple of times in meetings. </Cool story bro>

 

oriental andrew

April 9th, 2014 at 3:48 PM ^

You'd think Indy would've been home court for Michigan in the regionals this time around, but Kentucky fans DOMINATED that stadium.  Easily a 3:1 ratio of UK:UM fans.  

Anyway, how do they select the locations?  It's been a while since they've been in Chicago (where I now live).  It looks like they prefer domed NFL stadiums; United Center only holds about 20k, so they'd probably only do the opening rounds there.  

LSAClassOf2000

April 9th, 2014 at 7:05 PM ^

I won't lie about this - from this moment forward now, whenever we talk about Joe Lunardi releasing another bracket, this post is going to come to mind and I will probably chuckle about it for a bit. Indeed, a stomach virus may now be known as an "upset bracket" now. 

ESPN only goes back as far as November, but he did have us in Milwaukee as a 3-seed even though we ended up a 2-seed, so it was fairly close. It would be interesting to take a conference like the Big Ten and compare his earliest available picks versus how teams entered the tournament. 

Bambi

April 9th, 2014 at 4:00 PM ^

Lunardi still is counting Maryland as ACC I guess, or else we'd have 8 teams and the ACC would have 7.

And since they should be B1G, unless we only played Maryland once during the regular season we wouldn't be able to play them in the round of 32. Even if we did only play them once, I'm sure the committee would prefer not to have us potentially meet in the round of 32.

ClearEyesFullHart

April 9th, 2014 at 4:01 PM ^

I feel like Michigan has had enough to win the whole thing for the last two years(Some of you scoffed at the idea before the tourney last year, but 5 points is pretty darned close). But aside from Kansas, the ball just hasn't bounced our way. I feel like if McGary stays(a big if) Michigan would have as good a shot as anyone to bring home the hardware. In my opinion it would be Michigan's best shot yet.

rb4kb8

April 9th, 2014 at 4:14 PM ^

tickets to Sweet 16 and Elite 8 games at the Carrier Dome for next year.

My track record suggests Michigan will NOT be playing in the East.

Generic MGoBlogger

April 9th, 2014 at 4:20 PM ^

I don't really know why everyone is so down on Ohio about next year... Obviously they need to find a scorer, but they have plenty of options including a loaded recruiting class and incoming grad-transfer Anthony Lee.  Along with that, an extra offseason should be beneficial to the already young group they had. 

IMO, they'll be a three seed, but damn, I would sure love another season like this past one for them.

jtmc33

April 9th, 2014 at 4:38 PM ^

1 UM vs. 8 Maryland in the second round?

Either Lunardi doesn't realize Maryland is in the B1G next year, or, he is predicting that the selection committee will change its long existing rule to make sure conference foes don't face each other until the Sweet 16 at the earliest.

bronxblue

April 9th, 2014 at 5:51 PM ^

Color me impressed that UM has gotten to the point in the past 5 years that I'm no longer shocked when pre-season rankings point to them as one of the top teams in the country and I'm not surprised.

rmic2

April 10th, 2014 at 11:45 AM ^

Michigan playing in Pittsburgh next year would be great, as I live in Pittsburgh. I already plan on going to the first/second round regardless - so Michigan being there would be icing on the cake. Those games will be sold out - Pittsburgh has a good track record of hosting the NCAA tourney.

Agree with an earlier post - the committee can't have us going to Columbus - that would be brutal. Even Cleveland in the regional finals is not great, in my opinion. I hope Cleveland only being 2 hours from AA would drown out the home town osu crowd.