I'm creating a new thread for this for those who are interested in my projections. The Bracketology 2024 thread has turned into a wildly misinformed thread where every other question is about Omaha, so I don't want this to get lost there. I'm also not going to use this thread to explain basic bracketing principles. We all have various levels of educational attainment; use them as you read and learn here. I'm also willing to answer reasonable questions here rather than them getting lost in the other thread.
For those wondering what my bonafides are, I've been doing bracketology since 2014 (I believe I've missed two years since then). You can find me on the Bracket Matrix rankings page where I'm ranked 34th over the last 5 years. So ranked higher than Lunardi at 98th or Palm at 142nd.
Here's the link to the Google Sheet where I post my bracket. For those who want to do a last minute deep-dive, there's also a tab in there titled Resumes where I have collected all the valuable information that the committee uses (Quad records, resume metrics (KPI/SOR, predictive metrics (Kenpom, BPI), best wins, etc.). That sheet is where I do all my analysis to compare resumes, and it's set up with directions for others to sort/filter the data if they'd like to do the same.
Alright, here's my final bracket:
ISU Notes:
For those wondering what my bonafides are, I've been doing bracketology since 2014 (I believe I've missed two years since then). You can find me on the Bracket Matrix rankings page where I'm ranked 34th over the last 5 years. So ranked higher than Lunardi at 98th or Palm at 142nd.
Here's the link to the Google Sheet where I post my bracket. For those who want to do a last minute deep-dive, there's also a tab in there titled Resumes where I have collected all the valuable information that the committee uses (Quad records, resume metrics (KPI/SOR, predictive metrics (Kenpom, BPI), best wins, etc.). That sheet is where I do all my analysis to compare resumes, and it's set up with directions for others to sort/filter the data if they'd like to do the same.
Alright, here's my final bracket:
ISU Notes:
- Coming into Championship Week, I thought ISU had a 0% chance at a 1-seed. Then Tennessee lost, then Arizona lost, then UNC lost, then here's the most important part -- Iowa State beat Houston by 28! They went from 9 to 5 in Kenpom. They rose up to 6 in the NET. Houston has 2 losses all year, and 2 of them are to Iowa State. That's the kind of a result that could make the committee pull back and say, "Hey, should we take another look at this?" Ultimately, I'll put their chances at a 1-seed at 20%. I think we've seen over the last few years that the committee tends to not overreact or move things around at the last minute to account for Championship Week results (which I don't think is outrageous either).
- I have ISU as the top 2-seed, which means they have top priority of the 2-seeds and are sent to their closest regional site, which would be Detroit. If Tennessee and/or Marquette stay ahead of ISU, expect to see ISU as the 2-seed in the East.
- I believe they no longer reveal all the 1-seeds first on the Selection Sunday show and just start going through the bracket with that first regional. When they start with UConn in the East, if we're NOT the 2-seed there, get your hopes up for 1-seed out West or 2-seed in Midwest.
- We'll be in Omaha for the first weekend. The other 1st weekend pod there will either be Illinois (#11 on my seed list) or Kansas (#12 on my seed list). Illinois is technically closer to Pittsburgh (by less than 10 miles), but it's a shorter drive hours/minutes-wise to Omaha. Not sure what the committee policy is in that type of situation. I defaulted to as the crow flies miles.
- Because of all the conference tournament bid thieves this year, the bubble has shifted drastically. For me, it's these 11 teams for 5 spots:
- Colorado, Texas A&M, Colorado State, Oklahoma, Michigan State, Virginia, St. John's, Pittsburgh, Seton Hall, Indiana State, Providence.
- If what I have forecasted here is what happens (which is highly unlikely, I'm guessing I'll miss 1-2 teams on the bubble), imagine the uproar from the Big East only getting 3 teams. It would be loud.
- The areas where I think I'm most likely to be wrong is the 5 and 6-seed lines. Really struggled with that run from Wisconsin at 17 to Utah State at 23.
- Alabama is my last 4-seed, but damn, they're a weak last 4-seed. Just don't know who would jump them.
- I also struggled with spots 32 to 37 and then 38 to the First Four Out. I think TCU at 37 is the last team on my list where I'd be shocked if they were left out. Starting at 38, none of those would surprise me.
- Related to that, I think I'm lower on Colorado State than consensus and higher on Florida Atlantic than consensus. Those could be misses from me.
- Speaking to how difficult this is to do in a short period of time today, I was about to post my bracket and realized I had TCU in there twice. Obviously, the committee has vanguards setup to protect against such errors, but the fact that they seed the teams and scrub the seed list the last few days and leave bracketing all for Sunday is so wild to me. They want the conference championship games as a TV lead-in, but the bracket would probably be so much better balanced if there were no games today as they could spend the last 18 hours or so building the bracket.
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