Bracketology Guide / Resume Comparison Data

NiceMarmot

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Oct 25, 2017
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So there have been a handful of bracket/resume/NET related threads, but I haven't seen one that really summarizes or guides people on which brackets to look at, who's best, or where to compare resumes. Hoping this thread can help.

Background, I've been doing bracketology off and on since 2014. I've missed a couple years (2016 and 2021) which is why you won't see my rankings on the Bracket Matrix currently, but I should be added to the list again after this season. I finished 21st in 2018 and 16th in 2019 in my last two years of doing it (see "B12" for the label/link in those two year's rankings).

First things first, there is no need to ever cite Lunardi or Palm and their brackets! Ever! They are not good at it! Especially Palm! He's currently ranked 100 out of 135, and Lunardi is middle-of-the-pack at best and typically does one "magical" update right before Selection Sunday where his bracket suddenly changes and resembles the consensus of the Bracket Matrix. Reading threads here and seeing people bring up these two constantly is maddening. Ignore them!

Here are the some of the best over many years and who people should be looking at:
  1. Dave Ommen at Bracketville
  2. Lukas Harkins at HeatCheckCBB
  3. Delphi Bracketology
  4. Rocco Miller at Bracketeer
  5. Jonathon Warriner at Making The Madness
  6. Shelby Mast at Bracket WAG (He's dropped in the rankings in recent years so take his with a grain of salt, but I remember him being one of the best when I started this back in mid-2010s. Also, he does daily updates if you're itching for something new.)
Those are a good five/six to check daily to see what their updates are. When all else fails, just rely on the Bracket Matrix consensus instead of Lunardi and Palm.

If interested, here's a link to where I'm posting my bracket updates which can be found at the Bracket Matrix as well. I just do it in Google Sheets now, and I update right now on Monday and Friday.

Honestly, I don't care much if you look at my bracket, but I do think a lot of people here would find value in the "Resumes" tab I have in the sheet. I keep reading people who say, "If we lose this one, we drop to Dayton" without having any idea what other school's resumes actually look like (and how ISU is much closer to a 7 than an 11/12 as long we don't lose out). Here's an easy spreadsheet to avail yourself of the data the committee is actually using as they evaluate and seed teams. It's set up so you can sort/filter each teams' resumes/metrics however you would like. Right now, I do a mass update of the data on Monday and Friday as well, but will update more frequently as we get into the week of major conference tournaments.

resumes-capture.PNG

Hope the bracket recommendations and resume data are of good use! And seriously, no more Lunardi and Palm here please.
 
Last edited:

clone52

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Cool stuff.

Those 6 you linked are REALLY confused about Iowa. Anywhere from a 7-11.
 
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JM4CY

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I like the top bracket guy. If we do get in an 8-9 game. Gimme Arizona of the potential 1 seeds all day. I like our chances there the best.
 

Cyinthenorth

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Hopefully someday people will listen to us and ignore Lunardi and Palm.
They just simply have bigger platforms so the average/ casual fan is going to be aware of them and not many of the others. Sad reality. Props to @NiceMarmot for providing some other references
 

NiceMarmot

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Oct 25, 2017
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Cool stuff.

Those 6 you linked are REALLY confused about Iowa. Anywhere from a 7-11.

The 3 teams toughest to seed right now are Houston, Iowa, and North Carolina. Good performance metrics (BPI, Kenpom, Sagarin) compared to lesser resume metrics (KPI and SOR). And all 3 have 0 or 1 Q1 wins as of right now (of the three, Iowa is in the best shape as far as opportunities for future Q1 wins). Would not be surprised if hitting on those three teams this year will be what determines which brackets are the "most correct" (obviously as well as getting those final 4 in).
 

dahliaclone

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Mar 4, 2007
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I like the top bracket guy. If we do get in an 8-9 game. Gimme Arizona of the potential 1 seeds all day. I like our chances there the best.

Jinx! I said the same thing earlier today about facing Arizona. In the bracket I saw it was ISU vs Wyoming in the 8/9 with Arizona waiting. If we're in an 8/9 I would rather face them.
 
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dahliaclone

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Mar 4, 2007
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So there have been a handful of bracket/resume/NET related threads, but I haven't seen one that really summarizes or guides people on which brackets to look at, who's best, or where to compare resumes. Hoping this thread can help.

Background, I've been doing bracketology off and on since 2014. I've missed a couple years (2016 and 2021) which is why you won't see my rankings on the Bracket Matrix currently, but I should be added to the list again after this season. I finished 21st in 2018 and 16th in 2019 in my last two years of doing it (see "B12" for the label/link in those two year's rankings).

First things first, there is no need to ever cite Lunardi or Palm and their brackets! Ever! They are not good at it! Especially Palm! He's currently ranked 100 out of 135, and Lunardi is middle-of-the-pack at best and typically does one "magical" update right before Selection Sunday where his bracket suddenly changes and resembles the consensus of the Bracket Matrix. Reading threads here and seeing people bring up these two constantly is maddening. Ignore them!

Here are the some of the best over many years and who people should be looking at:
  1. Dave Ommen at Bracketville
  2. Lukas Harkins at HeatCheckCBB
  3. Delphi Bracketology
  4. Rocco Miller at Bracketeer
  5. Jonathon Warriner at Making The Madness
  6. Shelby Miller at Bracket WAG (He's dropped in the rankings in recent years so take his with a grain of salt, but I remember him being one of the best when I started this back in mid-2010s. Also, he does daily updates if you're itching for something new.)
Those are a good five/six to check daily to see what their updates are. When all else fails, just rely on the Bracket Matrix consensus instead of Lunardi and Palm.

If interested, here's a link to where I'm posting my bracket updates which can be found at the Bracket Matrix as well. I just do it in Google Sheets now, and I update right now on Monday and Friday.

Honestly, I don't care much if you look at my bracket, but I do think a lot of people here would find value in the "Resumes" tab I have in the sheet. I keep reading people who say, "If we lose this one, we drop to Dayton" without having any idea what other school's resumes actually look like (and how ISU is much closer to a 7 than an 11/12 as long we don't lose out). Here's an easy spreadsheet to avail yourself of the data the committee is actually using as they evaluate and seed teams. It's set up so you can sort/filter each teams' resumes/metrics however you would like. Right now, I do a mass update of the data on Monday and Friday as well, but will update more frequently as we get into the week of major conference tournaments.

View attachment 95877

Hope the bracket recommendations and resume data are of good use! And seriously, no more Lunardi and Palm here please.

Love this stuff...thanks for posting!
 

dahliaclone

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I talk about Palm and Lunardi too much. It's mainly because they've got the biggest reach and are the ones the media use/interview the most, nothing more. Here's to hoping some of these others the OP listed (including them) get more ink!
 

Lafaester54

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Mar 18, 2011
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I’m in the minority here but I’d like a 10or 11 seed. You play a 6 or 7 then a 3 or 2 if you win.
Re Arizona, I live in the mountain time zone so I’m awake late enough
to have seen Arizona play quite a few games. I think they’re very good.
USC and UCLA are good, too.
On the other hand, I think we have to play well the rest of the year and the Big 12 tournament to have momentum for the NCAA tourney. If we do we will have a 7/8/9 seed.
It just nice to be thinking of tourney possibilities rather than if we will get win number three like last year.
 

Cyinthenorth

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I’m in the minority here but I’d like a 10or 11 seed. You play a 6 or 7 then a 3 or 2 if you win.
Re Arizona, I live in the mountain time zone so I’m awake late enough
to have seen Arizona play quite a few games. I think they’re very good.
USC and UCLA are good, too.
On the other hand, I think we have to play well the rest of the year and the Big 12 tournament to have momentum for the NCAA tourney. If we do we will have a 7/8/9 seed.
It just nice to be thinking of tourney possibilities rather than if we will get win number three like last year.
Agree on Arizona. I think they're better than any big 12 team, aside from maybe a full strength Baylor.
 

CascadeClone

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Oct 24, 2009
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Good on you for doing your own bracket project. Fair amount of work involved.

+1 on bracketmatrix too, they've been around a while now and are known, but for a while they were kind of the smart secret sauce on all this.
 

EIClone

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Nov 21, 2011
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Get by the 1st game and I like our chanced in the 2nd. Two day turnaround to get ready for us (our defense) has got to be a tough task. I don't think a lot of teams can simulate what we do. That said, it also depends on how WE play.
 

Big_Sill

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I’m in the minority here but I’d like a 10or 11 seed. You play a 6 or 7 then a 3 or 2 if you win.
Re Arizona, I live in the mountain time zone so I’m awake late enough
to have seen Arizona play quite a few games. I think they’re very good.
USC and UCLA are good, too.
On the other hand, I think we have to play well the rest of the year and the Big 12 tournament to have momentum for the NCAA tourney. If we do we will have a 7/8/9 seed.
It just nice to be thinking of tourney possibilities rather than if we will get win number three like last year.
Agree, that 11 is sometimes a better spot than 8 or 9, but we'd rather be a 7 than a 10 (get 2 seed next round either way).
 
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NiceMarmot

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Oct 25, 2017
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Wednesday's game against West Virginia might be the most "important" (depending on how you want to define importance, @ Baylor definitely provides most opportunity) left on the schedule just from a standpoint of avoiding a potential "bad loss". West Virginia is currently 75 in the NET; there's no way of knowing how far away they are from the teams ranked 76-80 as the actual NET metric that determines the ranking isn't public, but it's possible our road game against them will flip from Q1 loss to Q2 loss, which weirdly will make our Q1 record look better. And Wednesday's home game against them could end up being only our second Q3 game of season.

ia-state-sheet-02222022-capture.PNG
 

Clyde4cy

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Wednesday's game against West Virginia might be the most "important" (depending on how you want to define importance, @ Baylor definitely provides most opportunity) left on the schedule just from a standpoint of avoiding a potential "bad loss". West Virginia is currently 75 in the NET; there's no way of knowing how far away they are from the teams ranked 76-80 as the actual NET metric that determines the ranking isn't public, but it's possible our road game against them will flip from Q1 loss to Q2 loss, which weirdly will make our Q1 record look better. And Wednesday's home game against them could end up being only our second Q3 game of season.

View attachment 95886

Darn. I thought we were out of the woods on bad losses after the Missouri game. Hopefully they cool off from 3 this time around.
 

NiceMarmot

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Oct 25, 2017
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With so many games last night and also having some time today, I was able to update my bracket today. Here's today version.

Looks like Warriner at Making the Madness also updated today, and he too has ISU as a 7 (and also in Kentucky's pod in Indy).

I also used the Resumes tab in the linked Google Sheet to really do a deeper dive at some resumes and put teams into some tiers. Always find it easier to evaluate one team against another when you find their "resume neighbors". It's also a great way as a fan of specific team to find who you want to root against for seed competition and also what teams could pass ISU on the seed list if a team goes on a run.

I feel confident right now that the final 6-seed is totally up for grabs. To me, that feels like one of the clearest divides in these tiers, the one between Tier 3 and Tier 4. If ISU wins 2 out of 3 and can upset one of the top 3 in the Big 12 tournament (doing both is a damn big ask), it's not unreasonable to think they could climb to that final 6-seed, depending on other results or if another team in that 4th tier goes on a run. But once again, that would require 2 or 3 additional Quad 1 wins down the stretch. Not counting on it, but certainly would be fun.

tiers-capture-02242022.PNG
 

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