2/27 Bracketology
Lunardi still has Michigan on the 6 line.
http://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/bracketology
Bracket Matrix agrees.
However, I decided to post this tonight because Rhode Island is getting DESTROYED at home by the 13-15 St. Joseph Hawks. That's an absolutely catastrophic loss for a team with basically 0 big wins. This type of loss could cost them a couple of seed lines.
February 27th, 2018 at 8:31 PM ^
I like FoxSports, they have us as a 3!
But if you look at the best prognosticators for 5-years running on the BracketMatrix they all have us at a 5 seed as of today. Floor is a 7 with a first round BTT exit.
February 27th, 2018 at 8:36 PM ^
Re: URI no question they'll be below us now. It seems Lunardi is still heavily favoring RPI. We are ahead of all 5 seeds and two 4 seeds in Kenpom and #15 AP. I think we are a 5 at the moment with a good chance at a 4 if we beat Nebraska. A 3 seems unlikely without at least taking down MSU again.
Also, I cannot see how anyone would put Arizona ahead of us or OSU two seeds ahead of us. OSU and Mich have nearly identical resumes, in fact ours is better if you value recent performance.
February 27th, 2018 at 8:56 PM ^
Kenpom is great for a lot of things but it is not a resume tool. and shouldn't impact seeding. The RPI isn't great at it either but kenmpom says how good a team is, not how good their resume is and the tournament should seed on resume not talent
February 27th, 2018 at 9:02 PM ^
I understand that. My point is that every piece of data or ranking, metric, eye test etc. indicates we should be around a 4 seed except RPI.
February 27th, 2018 at 9:30 PM ^
factors in SOS(or strength of opponents in their schedule) to his formula so it's a combo of resume and how good of a team they are this season. KenPom rewards teams that beat teams who are higher ranked or outperform expectations.
February 27th, 2018 at 10:20 PM ^
KenPom's model is designed to be predictive, so it looks at adjusted effiiciency, not whether you win or lose. You can dominate a weak schedule and still do well in KenPom. You can also lose every game on your schedule and end up #1 in his formula, if you manage to play nothing but road games against the top 2-3 teams and lose each of them by one. :)
Michigan has a very weak tournament résumé. I wish it weren't so, but it is. They have 2-4 wins over tournament teams (UCLA and Texas could both miss out). They have a couple of subpar losses (@NW, vs. LSU). The wins over Maryland and PSU look better to KenPom than they do in the RPI.
Furthermore, most of these bracket projections are as if the season ended today, and the rest of the country has two games in hand on Michigan thanks to the ridiculous need to play in the world's most overrated arena.
Michigan would do very well to pick up two more wins over MSU and Purdue (preferably) or OSU.
February 28th, 2018 at 12:53 AM ^
There's zero chance a win against Nebraska, which isn't even on the first four out line of the Bracket Matrix, is going to improve our seeding. A loss however...
February 27th, 2018 at 8:35 PM ^
February 27th, 2018 at 8:45 PM ^
I'm more concerned about getting to the Sweet 16 in the first place. Being a 5 seed means playing a 4 in the second round, rather than a 3.
February 27th, 2018 at 8:45 PM ^
if we are a 6, we'll be put in a bracket with either Duke or UNC. I don't see much difference between them and the 1 seeds. I'd just as soon be a five and have a presumably easier path to the sweet sixteen.
February 27th, 2018 at 8:48 PM ^
I don't think it matters.
All the 1s and 2s right now seem really interchangable.
February 27th, 2018 at 8:51 PM ^
at a 6 in Midwest, which is a bunch of crap. BUT - the top 5 seeds in their bracket are as follows:
1 - Xavier; 2 - Auburn; 3 - West Virginia; 4 - Clemson; 5 - Arizona
My first reaction is disgust that we would be at a 6, behind these teams, most of which we are strong than
My second reaction is: Yes, please! Make us a 6 with these other teams at the 1-5. Wow!
Going to be an interesting March for our really good team that is peaking at the right time.
February 27th, 2018 at 8:53 PM ^
Yes, I would gladly take a 6 for that to be our bracket. Not sure they have a single on of those 5 seeds correct though.
February 27th, 2018 at 8:59 PM ^
Xavier probably a weak 1, and West Virginia looked pretty good yesterday playing Texas Tech. But Auburn sucks, no way are they a 2. Looking for them to get their asses handed to them tonight by the Hogs. Clemson is fading, shouldnt be a 4. Arizona - They are a mess after this last report on the scandal.
CBS is smoking crack with this bracket. But was fun to vision is with this combo of teams for a moment...
February 28th, 2018 at 8:55 AM ^
We are the type of team that WV absolutely does not want to play. We don't turn the ball over, we handle ourselves well in transition on both ends of the court, and we are solid when it comes to defensive rebounding. The only thing that would worry me is our Free throw shooting ability against such a physical team.
Personally, I want to be in a region with a #1 Seed Kansas. Would love to see Azubuike have to chase Wagner all over the floor, it would be like Biggie Swanigan 2.0
February 27th, 2018 at 8:45 PM ^
February 27th, 2018 at 10:25 PM ^
The Big Ten is really that bad this year. Barring a massive upset in the Big Ten tournament, it's a 4-bid league.
Nebraska: lost to St. John's before it was cool, UCF, and Illinois
Penn State: lost to Rider and Minnesota, both at home
Indiana: Only an amazing upset of Notre Dame kept them from getting swept by in-state opponents, as they managed to lose to Indiana State and IPFW. They also lost at Illinois.
Maryland: Actually not a bad résumé -- their worst lost is to St. Bonaventure -- but they have 12 total losses and only 1 win over a tournament team (vs. Butler at home).
Those are your top 4 at-large bid candidates after the locks (MSU, OSU, Purdue, Michigan). The Big Ten is basically a mid-major conference this year.
February 28th, 2018 at 12:31 AM ^
I think there are 4 teams who are pretty good and could do some damage in the tourney: MSU, Purdue, OSU and UM. Nebraska and PSU aren't bad but after that it's a steep drop.
When you're a power 5 conference and half your league is outside of the RPI Top 100, it's bad. Brian talks about how UM should schedule more non-conference games against teams in the 150-200 range because they should be wins and they'll help the non-conference SOS. He's essentially talking about scheduling better mid major programs. Unfortunately, a decent portion of the Big Ten falls into that range this year. On ESPN's RPI page Northwestern is 158, Iowa is 162, Illinois is 166 and Rugers is 209. Throw in Minnesota at 147 and a 1/3 of the conference is piss poor.
February 28th, 2018 at 9:10 AM ^
This is amazing to watch, I can't take my eyes off of it.
February 27th, 2018 at 8:53 PM ^
Rhode Island is somehow 8th in RPI. I have no idea why the committee continues to heavily value what is easily the worst metric out there.
February 27th, 2018 at 8:55 PM ^
I don't even know what Rhode Island's mascot is. Are they the Cthulhus? If not, they really should be.
February 27th, 2018 at 9:18 PM ^
February 27th, 2018 at 9:19 PM ^
February 27th, 2018 at 9:56 PM ^
February 27th, 2018 at 9:04 PM ^
Redundant in that it is now not only used to rank teams, but also used to divide teams into arbitrary quadrants and rank the quality of victories. It depends 75% on who you play and only 25% on the outcome of your invididual games. That is the pathetic part. Maryland's RPI went UP after we crushed them on their home court on senior night in the most meaningful game of their season. The insult is that it is used in a 'data focused' way to tell us that the most deserving teams get the best seeds. That is an insult to intelligent sports fans and a sports society that has more access to meaningful data then ever before (see Ken Pom, Torvik, etc).
February 27th, 2018 at 9:31 PM ^
When we beat Alabama A&M by 50 points, we fell 9 spots in RPI. Any system that considers demolishing a bad team to be evidence you are also a bad team is fundamentally flawed and should not be used for anything.
February 27th, 2018 at 9:05 PM ^
It's just absurd. If you want to do Dan Dakich eye/gut test only, fine. Hard to do with so many teams. But if you are going to include data as an aid, don't use shitty data.
February 27th, 2018 at 8:53 PM ^
Tonight, Rhode Island is 2-27 (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) from three. I don't even know how that's possible, you would figure enough chucks at the net and maybe FIVE would go down at minimum. But 2 of 27? Yikes.
February 27th, 2018 at 9:09 PM ^
just lost 78-48 to St. Joes? Wow. This follows a loss to St Bonaventure a week ago, followed by a win against might LaSalle in which the two teams decided that defense would be too much effort, with the final score 95-93.
See ya on the 8/9 line, Rhode Island...
February 27th, 2018 at 9:10 PM ^
I wouldn't go that far. But they'll probably slip to a 6.
February 27th, 2018 at 9:16 PM ^
still have to play at Davidson, who is far superior to St. Joes. My 8/9 is anticipating more pathetic play.
The St. Joes game tonight was at home. Can you imagine being a Rhode Island fan and watching that steaming turd of a game?
February 27th, 2018 at 8:54 PM ^
What is happening to URI? Amazing there is a single person in the stands still. It’s like what we did to Maryland but for 2 halves.
February 27th, 2018 at 8:57 PM ^
February 27th, 2018 at 8:58 PM ^
It's all about the matchups. In some cases a 6 would be better than a 4 if the 2 seed is weak which could be a team like Auburn this year.
Sign me TF up for a Sweet 16 game with Bruce "Michigan beat me by 30" Pearl.
February 27th, 2018 at 9:34 PM ^
By the time conference tourneys shake out all the 2's will be legit: UNC, Duke, MSU, Purdue, so it won't be much of an advantage being on the top or the bottom.
February 27th, 2018 at 8:59 PM ^
I admit, I am a fan and have a huge bias towards my team. But seriously, the seeding for Michigan was a joke last year. Remember how the B1G championship game was played so late and they basically left one spot for us regardless of the outcome? Well, our resume looked good at the end and we were on fire. Yet, we were not given anything near an appropriate seed (yet Minnesota was way ahead of us?!) And now this year, our resume speaks for itself, but the bracketologists continue to keep teams like OSU, Clemson, and Rhode Island ahead of us. Looking at their records, quality wins, etc, they do not excel us. Then, you add in the fact that we are playing hot now and winning big games later in the season. You would think that a superior resume and a streaking team would assure us of appropriately being seeded ahead of these teams. Now, I know these bracketologists are just guessing and do not actually have a say, but (fan alert) I get the vibe that some of these people have a bias against Michigan. It is easy to speculate the reasons, but it is all speculation. I will leave that to your imagination. Do I sound rational here?
February 27th, 2018 at 9:00 PM ^
Advantage to playing the BTT early in the season, IMO. If Michigan wins or makes a good run in the tourney, it will give the committee more time to digest the run.
February 27th, 2018 at 9:06 PM ^
Said the same today; that is a keen observation. I hope it serves us well this year; we will see soon!
February 27th, 2018 at 9:53 PM ^
Michigan did get screwed a bit last year but remember, that team had 11! losses going into the NCAA tournament, and just how high can an 11-loss team get slotted? There's a lot of inertia that gets lost in recency bias and the selection committee expressly does not weight "how you're playing lately".
This year UM is poised for a 4 or 5 seed as long as they make the BTT semi's. And I think that's right where they belong.
Also, hooray no more Mark Hollis on the selection committee.
February 28th, 2018 at 12:09 AM ^
for us and Wisconsin. Whoever won got the higher seed of the two. They were both too low.
February 28th, 2018 at 12:48 AM ^
Like it or not, the NCAA uses RPI to heavily influence their decision making. I wouldn't really say UM has a superior resume over either Clemson or OSU if you are looking at RPI.
Michigan: 23-7, 86th SOS, 295 NCSOS, 2-4 against RPI Top 100, 0-0 vs 26-50 and 5-2 vs 51-100 for a 7-6 record against RPI Top 100.
OSU: 24-7, 13th SOS, 43 NCSOS. 3-3 vs Top 25, 0-2 vs 26-50 and 5-2 vs 51-100 for a 6-7 record against RPI Top 100.
Clemson: 21-7, 19th SOS, 61 NCSOS, 2-3 vs Top 25, 5-3 vs 26-50 and 3-1 vs 51-100 for a 10-8 record against RPI Top 100.
You know what stands out there...the low SOS and the horrible NCSOS UM has. It's why Brian complains about how they schedule a few games each year against god awful teams. They don't need to schedule more heavyweights just stop scheduling the god awful teams.
February 27th, 2018 at 9:05 PM ^
February 27th, 2018 at 9:07 PM ^
The 1s and 2s are basically the same teams. No team has really established themselves yet as elite. Any of them can be beaten, any of them can win the whole thing.
February 27th, 2018 at 9:14 PM ^
6 seeds actually have a higher expected number of wins in the tournament than 5 seeds. So no, the 5/12 thing is not a myth.
February 27th, 2018 at 9:06 PM ^
Lunardi and ESPN are turd sandwiches!
February 27th, 2018 at 9:22 PM ^
to turd sandwiches...
February 27th, 2018 at 9:08 PM ^
Came into thread to the one Australian guy complain about a bracketology thread
February 27th, 2018 at 9:09 PM ^
Saw the downvote in about 3 seconds, and knew exactly who it was.
February 27th, 2018 at 9:15 PM ^
down under; always ready to spoil a thoughtful and intelligent discussion