More Brackets

06-07 Basketball General NCS Basketball54

I hate brackets! I hate discussions about brackets that start in Dec/Jan. I hate the endless droning about seeding. I hate discussions about filling out brackets. I hate listening to talking heads discuss their brackets instead of the NCAAT games that are being played. I HATE BRACKETS.

I won’t bore you by either defending or explaining my view. But my feelings probably explain why I never even considered including “professional” projections in yesterday’s entry on how much work was left for the ACC teams in the ACCT.

However, this omission became obvious after reading the comments to yesterday’s entry. A quick summary of some well-known projections would have made a nice addition to that piece. So now that I have admitted my bias, I can also correct the omission that it caused. Here is a short summary from two of the better known projections…David Mihm from bracketology.com and Joe Lundardi from ESPN:

 

Mihm

Lunardi

North Carolina

2

2

Maryland

3

4

Duke

5

7

Virginia Tech

5

5

Boston College

7

7

Virginia

7

5

Georgia Tech

8

10

Florida St.

LFO

NFO

Clemson

AC

—

Updated

3/5;  9pm

3/6

 

 

 

LFO

Last
Four Out

NFO

Next
Four Out

AC

Also
Considered

Several comments:

Both projections agreed with my thoughts concerning Duke and Maryland’s seeding. Their OOC schedule and higher RPI rank will improve their seeding when compared to other teams with similar or better ACC records.

VT and BC split their regular season games. They have the same conference record and overall record. They essentially have the same RPI ranking (27 & 30). So why do both projections have VT two seeds higher than BC?

– My guess is that sweeping UNC must be paying off for VT. But the difference in seeding also suggests that people are ignoring VT’s four bad losses to NCSU (#114), Marshall (#182), and Western Michigan (#142).

Florida State is close and needs to impress some people in the ACCT.

Both projections hate Clemson’s chances too. 😉

About VaWolf82

Engineer living in Central Va. and senior curmudgeon amongst SFN authors One wife, two kids, one dog, four vehicles on insurance, and four phones on cell plan...looking forward to empty nest status. Graduated 1982

06-07 Basketball General NCS Basketball

54 Responses to More Brackets

  1. BoKnowsNCS71 03/07/2007 at 2:46 PM #

    SFN – As your first line says — I hate “bracketology” also. Come Sunday night at about 7 PM I’ll have the NCAAT picks — good or bad — on a print out. And there will be plenty of controversy to talk about from then to Thursday as I make my picks.

    The hard part will be picking the winners. Wish we had a SFN MM NCCAT competition so we could see who on SFN is top dog at picking.

  2. Dan 03/07/2007 at 2:52 PM #

    ^ Ever since I got married, I suck at tourney brackets. There used to be a time where I watched tons of college b-ball. Tons. I’d tape it.

    Now, I’m lucky if I can catch non NC State ACC games.

  3. Trout 03/07/2007 at 3:03 PM #

    http://tcaa.puretecmo.com/nit06.html

    NIT-ology projection. He’s got South Carolina at least in consideration, and they have a overall losing record, but no NC State with an overall winning record.

  4. Dan 03/07/2007 at 3:05 PM #

    Wow. That guy is hardcore. NIT projections.

    I guess Gamecock fans have to have something to get excited about.

  5. RickJ 03/07/2007 at 3:09 PM #

    I suspect South Carolina is still being considered because they have won the NIT the last 2 years.

    “Maybe the major conferences should just have their own tournament with teams that don’t make the field. Screw the NIT.”

    Something like this was actually done for a couple of years prior to the big expansion of the NCAA tourney. The second place teams from the major conferences played. I’m pretty sure it was called something like the Commissioner’s Cup. I know Indiana won it one year. It was actually a terrific field.

  6. Lunatic Fringe 03/07/2007 at 3:09 PM #

    “Both Lundari and Mihm do pretty well with their final projections. It would be interesting to track the accuracy of the projections on Jan 1 and Feb 1 as well. Wonder why we never see any stats on how those projections turned out?”

    I did that for the top 4 seeds a couple year’s back for Lundari where I compared the first bracket to the last bracket, which you would think would have been a LOT easier. Pretty surprised about the misses even in guessing the right top 16 teams.

    I will make a point to do it again next year.

    be much easier than the full 64. It was pretty

  7. Trout 03/07/2007 at 3:12 PM #

    “Something like this was actually done for a couple of years prior to the big expansion of the NCAA tourney. The second place teams from the major conferences played. I’m pretty sure it was called something like the Commissioner’s Cup. I know Indiana won it one year. It was actually a terrific field.”

    Are you sure about that? I dont ever remember a postseason tourney other than the NCAA and the NIT

  8. Dan 03/07/2007 at 3:27 PM #

    The Red Jacket is back tomorrow night.

    In hockey lingo, the Red Jacket is a plus 3 in 60 minutes of action.

  9. Dan 03/07/2007 at 3:28 PM #

    ^ that’s per the N&O.

  10. highstick 03/07/2007 at 3:35 PM #

    What would the NIT be without Dave Odom? LOL! He’s become a legend!

  11. RickJ 03/07/2007 at 3:36 PM #

    Trout – The below entry came from the Texas Tech bio on Bobby Knight. It is the only thing I can find on the Collegiate Commissioner’s Association Championship. I think it only lasted a couple of years. I definitely remember it because it was viewed as a threat to the NIT. Don’t know why it was stopped but it is one obscure event.

    “It is in tournament play where the Knight genius shines. In 24 NCAA appearances, Hoosier teams under Bob Knight won 42 of 63 games (.667), winning titles in 1976, 1981, and 1987, while finishing third in 1973 and 1992. The Hoosiers won the first Collegiate Commissioner’s Association championship in 1974. In 1979, the Hoosiers won the National Invitation Tournament championship in New York’s famed Madison Square Garden and nearly added a second NIT title in 1985 before falling to UCLA in the championship game. They were one pass shy of going to the NIT Finals at the end of the 2002-2003 season. “

  12. Trout 03/07/2007 at 3:56 PM #

    ^ Good find. You learn something new everyday. I dont remember it, but I would have been 8 in ’74, so not surprising.

  13. redfred2 03/07/2007 at 4:15 PM #

    Bobby who???

  14. Mr O 03/07/2007 at 4:16 PM #

    This was a very interesting show I saw last night. Highly recommending DVRing this to see the questions being raised about the prep “schools” popping up around the country.

    http://www.hbo.com/realsports/stories/2007/episode.120.s4.html

    Diploma Mills

    With the recent proliferation of prep school basketball programs throughout the U.S., questions about academic integrity have arisen. For years, parents have looked to prep schools for smaller, more intimate learning environments, as well as a better shot at a college scholarship. But are they getting what they pay for? Are their kids getting the education they need, or simply being exploited by the schools for their basketball talent? REAL SPORTS correspondent Jon Frankel investigates this troubling phenomenon.

    I watched this last night. Basically, it was about how there are all these prep “schools” popping up around the country that are essentially basketball player factories. There may or may not be any other students at the school and obviously many of these schools may not even be legitimate schools in the first place.

    The reason these are so popular these days is to take advantage of the changes in minimum SAT score rules that NCAA mandates a few years back. There is a “sliding scale” where if a kid has a 3.5 GPA in core classes, then all he needs on the SAT is a score of 400(which means he doesn’t even have to answer a quesiton correctly on the test). So that is where these prep “schools” come into play. Their purpose(though the “schools” wouldn’t admit it”) is to give basketball players an opportunity to get a very high core GPA that they may not be able to get at a regular public or private HS.

    So while the “sliding scale” seemed like a good idea, it actually created ways to manipulate the system.

    Essentially, there are coaches who move around the country starting these schools and they bring their kids with them. There was this coach with a group of kids from somewhere in Africa that came to start a program at Florida Prep. Once they got there, there were no classes, no other students and wretched living conditions. So the coach found this school in California, who had just lost their coach and team to another prep school, and moved his kids all the way to California to start a program there.

    The program was funded by a venture capitalist who invested $500,000 in the program and said his purpose was to turn a small profit. How the hell do you turn a profit on a HS prep team?

    Anyways, the kids were receiving letters from all top schools(Arizona St was mentioned).

    They interviewed an NCAA official who said it is very difficult determining the status of these “schools”. When asked about Florida Prep he said they were waiting for an answer to their inquiry about the academic programs. Little did the NCAA rep know that Florida Prep had closed a year earlier.

    It would really be interesting to see who is funding these schools. Obviously the shoe companies are involved, but who else and with what kind of influence over where these kids go?

  15. Trout 03/07/2007 at 4:21 PM #

    I havent missed a NC State/SC game since 1975. Those ones in the 80s were awesome, except for 1987.

    84 – SC comes in unbeaten, Top 10. Pack plays it close, but SC pulls it out. SC has a chance to be #1 in the nation, loses to Navy, then loses to Clemson, then loses the Gator Bowl. Typical curse of the Chicken.

    85 – A late pass to Haywood Jeffiries wins the game for NC State in Columbia. Might be the best win of the Tom Reed era at NC State.

    86 – The Danny Peebles miracle.

    87 – Most dominating performance I’ve seen against NC State. I was in the middle of the SC student section for that game. Those fans were MAD because of what happened in 86

    88 – Todd Ellis 6-shooter game on ESPN

    89 – Thomas makes Ellis eat those guns. I got to the game about 3 minutes late, and missed the hit on Ellis. Bummer 🙂

    90 – We won in Raleigh, but I dont remember anything special about it

    91 – SC muffs a punt that we recover and never look back.

    99 – Hurricane game MOC’s pregame speech included a message to his team to “Take the focus off LOU, and put it on YOU!”

  16. TNCSU 03/07/2007 at 4:23 PM #

    Something I thought was interesting from the Dance Card Website:

    Special Thanks to SAS!!

    The authors would like to give a hearty and special thanks to all the good people at SAS Institute Inc., the maker of the software package used to develop the Dance Card. In particular, we thank Mike Nemecek, Anne Milley, Bill Rose, and Trent Smith, each of whom have been an absolute delight to work with.

    The only thing I really recognize is that FSU is about 15-16 spots “off” the bubble. I think if they beat Clemson, they’re in. Again, their PG is back, and Thorton can flat out, take over a game. Glad he’s a Senior!
    As most of you know, SAS is about 2 miles from the RBC Center.

  17. Trout 03/07/2007 at 4:26 PM #

    My post about SC/NC State games was suppose to be in another thread. Sorry.

  18. TNCSU 03/07/2007 at 4:28 PM #

    I thought this was pretty good commentary from the Duke Basketball Report website:

    “Drawing N.C. State in the opener was unfortunate. The short-handed Pack doesn’t have the manpower to win four games in four days, but Sidney Lowe’s first N.C. State team can play very well when it’s healthy, rested and focused – as evidenced by its victory over North Carolina and its two wins over Virginia Tech.

    Duke manhandled the Pack in Raleigh earlier this season, but that was when Lowe was missing senior point guard Engin Atsur. That makes a huge difference – Lowe simply doesn’t have enough real ACC players to do without one. What he does have are two very versatile big men in Ben McCauley and Brandon Costner and two physically gifted wings in Gavin Grant and Courtney Fells. With Atsur to handle the ball and set them up, N.C. State is very, very dangerous.

    It doesn’t help that Duke will be without Henderson for Thursday night’s game. While not nearly so devastating to the Devils as Atsur’s earlier loss was to N.C. State, it’s still a blow – especially since the freshman swingman closed the regular season with his two best games of the year.”

    Damn, I hope we can beat the Dookies — and I think we CAN!

  19. Andy 03/07/2007 at 4:47 PM #

    Heres one NIT projection if anyone is curious:

    http://tcaa.puretecmo.com/nit06.html

  20. Jeremy Hyatt 03/07/2007 at 4:49 PM #

    TNCSU – I must say it’s worth a shot!

    What’s great about tournements is you can start over. If we really believe our season would have been dramatically different had it not been for Atsur’s injury and a tough inopportune ACC schedule draw, now is the chance to prove it.

    Free entry into the NCAA’s premier conference’s tournement, I say game on!

  21. redfred2 03/07/2007 at 4:58 PM #

    We’d walk all over that lousy field and they know it.

    Ah, we’re too good for the NIT anyway. 😉

  22. choppack1 03/07/2007 at 5:16 PM #

    I wonder what UVa’s RPI would have been like if they didn’t go to Puerto Rico?

  23. tvp 03/07/2007 at 5:40 PM #

    Maybe I’m wrong about Clemson, but if I am, I don’t see why. I’ll be pissed if at least the FSU/Clemson winner isn’t in. This mid-major garbage has to stop – it’s gotten out of control.

    In a just world, both FSU and Clemson are in, but realistically 8 is probably the ACC’s ceiling now.

  24. gopack968 03/07/2007 at 5:57 PM #

    With all of the mid-major hoopla and the David and Goliath storyline popularity it is hard to see the ACC getting 8 teams in. When you look at the marginal decisions the committee has made in the past few years (Air Force for example), it is clear that the difficulty of competing in the major conferences is not enough of a factor.

  25. Texpack 03/07/2007 at 6:20 PM #

    The Dance Card is one projection that has the Tigs in the field, and I might add, by a comfortable margin.

1 2 3

Leave a Reply