NCAA March Madness Men's Bracket Preview
- Thread starter jcf817
- Start date
But it isn't straight 1v8 (etc).
Bracketing principle is to balance the four regions for 1-4 seeds as closely as possible (I think target is within 5 ranking points).
So you could get any of 1 vs. 8, 2 vs. 7, but it isn't guaranteed.
Example from the in-season reveal. (Obviously some of the placements/inclusion already has changed, but for demonstration purpose only)
SOUTH
1 Auburn (1)
2 Texas A&M (6)
3 Wisconsin (11)
4 Texas Tech (13)
(31 total)
MIDWEST
1 Alabama (2)
2 Purdue (7)
3 Iowa State (9)
4 Kansas (15)
(33)
EAST
1 Duke (3)
2 Tennessee (5)
3 Arizona (12)
4 St. John’s (16)
(36)
WEST
1 Florida (4)
2 Houston (8)
3 Kentucky (10)
4 Michigan (14)
(36)
--> Additional detail, as noted on the CBS broadcast, #5 cannot be placed in same region as top overall seed (hence, why A&M is in #1 Auburn region instead of Tennessee).
I don't really care 2 vs 3 if we get one of the two close sites for our first games.
I wonder if we are a 2 /3 if they'll intentionally keep us away from Auburn's region. I'm not afraid of a second neutral site game with them again but they're the only team that stands out on paper as just consistently better than the rest of the top 10 or 12.
Maybe that doesn't matter because with so many SEC teams it's almost guaranteed Auburn is going to get some high ranked SEC teams or ISU in their region somehow for rematches.
I watched A&M this weekend and the idea that they are better than ISU is laughable...and they were one of the teams around us that actually won.
Its so wild to see an uptemo Wisconsin.
I honestly don’t know what to think of any of the good teams in the big ten. Are they really good or is the league overall just average? I don’t see any final four contenders. Maybe one elite 8?
I'm not sure why people still think they run a slow down/swing type of offense still but they haven't been slow tempo really since Bo Ryan and his last team (not sure what the tempo ranked) that got the NCAA final had the Kenpom #1 offense.
They did bring someone in this season who I think has reworked some of aspects of what they were already doing. I think they've also upgraded a lot from Storr and Hepburn.
True. My explanation probably was incomplete.
This is the bracketing principle I'm referencing:
After the top four seed lines have been assigned, determine the relative strengths of the regions by adding the “true seed” numbers in each region to determine if any severe numerical imbalance exists. Generally, no more than five points should separate the lowest and highest total.
From an ISU perspective I wouldn't want them to run into WI or MI. WI's weakness is their defense but they've been guarding the arc much better lately.
Thanks for the info and correction. Knew it probably wasn’t as simple as I was making it.
Glad to help. I provided additional clarification for the bracketing concept, after a note from @jcf817 (regarding how I described the points balance).
Yeah, still really tough to let my mind think they get up and down after Bennett and Ryan
Indiana is gonna kick themselves for letting Michigan get May a year before they could have.
Yeah, that might've been missed window of opportunity. I guess it's possible to snag May anyway, but not sure of all the particulars.
I'm not sure who the heck IU is going to get. Based on speculation I've seen, there's no shortage of "maybes," but most of them seem unlikely for varied reasons.
I still feel like Nate Oats would be a natural replacement for Izzo so if Indiana can legit back the Brinks truck up for him, go for it before MSU does.
Great. You just know the committee is going to insert that as an AI prompt and let the computers do the seeding.
...wait. That might not be horrible.