More Brackets

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. TNCSU 03/08/2007 at 8:14 AM #

    If the Big East gets seven, which everyone predicts, the ACC SHOULD get eight. We are stronger — top to bottom — than the Big East this year, IMO.

  2. VaWolf82 03/08/2007 at 8:50 AM #

    ^ Flawed logic

    The stronger conference will boost the SOS for its members, which in turn boosts the RPI of the stronger conference. So the stronger conference will tend to put more teams into the NCAAT, but each team in the stronger conference has to “earn” it’s own way in.

    A stronger conference with more teams bunched around .500 won’t necessarily put more teams into the NCAAT. This year, Clemson or FSU has one last chance to show that they should be included. You will be able to eliminate one of these for sure today.

  3. TNCSU 03/08/2007 at 9:00 AM #

    Stronger conference is mainly determined by OOC wins, IMO. In conference games, one of the two has to lose — that’s why this 8-9 game is so important — if they weren’t playing each other, they’d both have a chance if they won. Of course, we know they both can’t win. Someone posted a comparison of ACC vs. PAC-10 a week or so ago showing wins vs. Top 25 teams. I’d like to see the same thing with ACC vs. Big East. Alot of teams bunched around .500 doesn’t mean anything if they haven’t done well OOC, but if they’ve only got 1 or 2 losses OOC, and some big OOC wins, they make the tournament. Also, does anyone find it ridiculous that the Big East teams don’t even play some other teams ONCE — I believe they are correcting it next year, but their UNBALANCED schedule is alot worse than ours. 16 teams is just TOO many IMO.

  4. VaWolf82 03/08/2007 at 10:10 AM #

    if they haven’t done well OOC, but if they’ve only got 1 or 2 losses OOC, and some big OOC wins, they make the tournament.

    This is one of the places where Clemson is hurting. They played a relatively weak OOC schedule (ranked 200+) and their “best” OOC win was ODU.

    4-9 since mid-Jan hurts alot too.

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