25-26 Bracketology

NCAA Tourney and Post-Season
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To follow up on Patty’s comment of Stanford and Cal languishing. I think the demise of the Pac 8/10/12 is one of the great college athletic tragedies. I come at that as a Stanford football ticket holder and a Fresno State undergrad (SCU MBA grad). The reconfigured conference is bound to be short-lived, and the Zags may regret their move.

The $20.5M spending cap, with all other conference members having to fund football, while GU does not, is already causing consternation. Why would we think that won’t have consequences?

Sadly, I don’t see a way back for Bill Walton’s beloved “Conference of Champions”.

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465

As long as geographic diversity in terms of TV markets, rather than geographic logic prevails, we’ll have this non-sense. At some point, logic will drive the west coast teams either from a cost perspective or, I believe, competitiveness perspective, back together. Stanford and Cal will never truly compete in the ACC in hoops, nor Oregon or UCLA in the Big 10. Apparently it’s tricky to even get above the cut line, even with all the math in their favor.

My wife’s grandfather played football at Stanford, mine at Cal - my law degree is from a former Pac-12 School - I grew up with that league and it meant so much to me… now gone, so some folks back east could make more money.

Its demise has jaded my few of athletics, as has the NIL and the legalized sports betting.

So many of the comments and tweets about these bubble games are obviously upset gamblers. Even on the SCU pre-game photos is the occasional “I know these boys can cover” comment from someone with no other connection. It isn’t good for anyone.

It’s terrible and sad. I said a while ago that I’d spend more time exercising and playing sports, not watching because of it all.

Don’t get me started on the digital court at the Big 12 tournament (and no, I’m not 70 years old)… pretty soon they’ll start throwing the parlays and over/under right onto the court beneath the player’s feet.

It’s taken a dream season from SCU, which I love so much and spend significant volunteer time working with, to drag me back in.

Even a season or two ago I was down to the odd “Nice Game” or “Bad Loss” comment, with some peppered in history. I just can’t quit our Broncos. I have quit my childhood favorite Kings, and some others.

Anyway, watching these power conference tournaments with bad crowds and teams from 2,000 miles away is depressing.

I hope VCU, UNM and anyone else who lives and dies with hoops gets in.

Go Broncos.

Oh, this is the Bracketology thread - VA Tech might lose to Wake Forest.

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466

Clock stops on a made bucket inside a minute.

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467

And now we wait…

Ps - can we get rid of the 20 character minimum?

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468

Lunardi updated his bracket and has the Broncos as a 10 seed playing in Buffalo

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469

10/11 would be great.

The only benefit from being a 8/9 is I think the likelihood of being in SD would increase significantly because i suspect Arizona (a No. 1) will be in SD.

Portland would be great. But with Gonzaga almost surely there, only one other pod.

I suspect we are going East and personally i’m hoping for anything but Buffalo. :joy:

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470

Based on Lunardi’s bracket, we are sitting in the clubhouse at #41. We seem to be neck & neck with Missouri based on most of the mock brackets that I’m following (ESPN, CBS, On3, Bauer, USA Today, SI, and Delphi).

The cutline for avoiding Dayton play-in round is currently #42. As in, #42 is the last spot that avoids Dayton, and #43 goes to Dayton.

The cutline for making the dance is currently #46.

If there is a bid steal (i.e. Miami-OH loses), then those cutlines shift to #41 for the bye and #45 to make it at all. Here is an important point about bid stealing that I don’t think has been discussed. If VCU wins the A-10 tourney, that probably doesn’t affect our chances of making it to The Dance (because VCU was already projected to be in anyway), but it DOES hurt our chances of avoiding the play-in round because as conference champs they’ll be ineligible for the play-in round. For example, right now VCU shows up in Lunardi’s bracket as “last 4 in” and going to Dayton. If they win their conference tourney, they automatically skip to the round of 64 and SCU or Missouri would get knocked down to the Dayton group. The same thing goes for the Mountain West with NM and SDSU.

Based on the consensus from the various mock brackets, I presume there are only 3 teams ahead of us that could drop below us with an upset loss:

  • A&M, NC State, and Texas

The list of teams below us that show up in some brackets as either in or “first 4 out”:

  • Missouri, UCF, VCU, SMU, Indiana, Auburn, New Mexico, Cal, Oklahoma, and Cincinnati

Other teams that are in the mix but we probably don’t have to worry about unless they steal an auto-bid:

  • Stanford (lost today), VT (lost today), Seton Hall, SDSU, WV

And finally, here is the list of key teams we want to WIN in order to avoid bid stealing.

  • SLU, Miami-OH, Utah St, and South Florida (the American Conference is probably still a one-bid league if USF loses, but I’m including them here just in case)
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471

Here are tomorrow’s (Wednesday 3/11) games that affect SCU. Bold represents needle-moving upset opportunities.

  • 9 AM NC St vs Pitt (2nd round ACC)
  • 11:30 SMU vs Louisville (2nd round ACC)
  • 12 PM Auburn vs Miss St (1st round SEC)
  • 12 PM Cincy vs UCF (2nd round Big 12) - We want Cincy to win this, otherwise UCF might pass us up for the bye. Cincy shouldn’t pass us unless they get 2 or 3 upsets in a row.
  • 3:30 Indiana vs Northwestern (2nd round Big10)
  • 4 PM Texas vs Ole Miss (1st round SEC)
  • 4 PM West Virginia vs BYU (2nd round Big12)
  • 4 PM Cal vs FSU (2nd round ACC)
  • 6:30 Oklahoma vs South Carolina (1st round SEC)
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472

If Arizona loses a game in the conference tournament, would they drop to a 2 seed? Even as a 2, they’d likely be in San Diego.

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Arizona, Duke and Michigan have locked up 1’s.

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As of this morning, CBS Sports has the Broncos as an 11 seed (no Dayton play-in) up against BYU.

Interestingly enough, they have SCU in the same region (West) as 4 seed Gonzaga. I would’ve thought the Selection Committee would try to spread out the 3 WCCs teams across 3 different regions.

Under CBSS’ scenario, Zags would be on a collision course with Arizona in the Sweet 16 (assuming, of course, that Gonzaga gets that far).

475

Losing to the Zags barely dented the WAB. SCU sits at #36, about 7-8 spots in the field. If WAB really is the most important resume metric, as is being predicted and somewhat signaled by the Selection Committee, SCU remains quite safe.

Something that probably doesn’t really matter at this point but is worth monitoring: Nevada is perilously close to dropping to a Q3 win. They sit at 73 in NET. The cut for a Q2 is top-75. If they don’t play well in the MWC Tournament, they may drop out of Q2 which would have a small, but significant impact on SCU’s resume. They win in Pullman already dropped to Q3 and is almost certainly not coming back, so feel confident but root for Nevada a little to play well (but not too well where they win the MWC Tournament).

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476

I’m feeling good but not great.

Related to our Nevada win dropping, VCU’s recent win @Dayton may not be a Q1 unless Dayton wins a game in the A-10 Tournament, as they sit at #76. Anything could happen on that, though.

The Broncos went to Vegas and did what they had to do:

  1. Not lose to Pacific.

  2. To feel comfortable, beat SMC - and an additional bonus, do so in a way that generated a highlight clip and got folks talking positively about the Broncos. We added a Q1-A win to a resume that desperately needed one.

  3. Take a puncher’s chance at the Zags. 25+ years of history shows you don’t beat those guys at the Orleans on the 3rd game in 3 days.

The Broncos passed the eye test - avenging the only bad game since LUC by beating SMC, and hanging tough with a now-30 win Zags team. We looked like a Tournament team this weekend.

I guess there’s reasons not to be sold on the Zags this year with injuries, etc. - but last time I checked, there’s only two 30 win teams out there, and Miami (OH) actually played 3 non-D1 games, putting them at 28-0 in the eyes of the committee. The Zags have beaten 30 D1 teams, and lost 3.

For our chances, I’m more concerned about bid-stealers that the committee has to take, and cannot send to Dayton - that’s a double whammy, and they tend to come from Mid-ish Major Leagues, so the committee may not feel as bad bumping down another smaller school. Certainly the Power Four could have a random, non-at large winner, but they would have to get really hot since the tops of those leagues are really, really good.

I think we’re dancing. I don’t think we’re out of the woods on Dayton yet.

Do not forget the 2018 Gaels - left home at 28-4 (16-2) after a semi-final loss to BYU. They had a different SOS profile than we do, but strange things happen on Selection Sunday.

I’d love to see Auburn lose today.

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477

This is the same NYT/Athletic article that JC shared above but now updated to account for last night’s game. SCU remains the Gray Lady’s anointed Cinderella for the season:

And there’s an updated Bauertology Bubble Watch that is a little pessimistic on SCU being able to avoid the First Four/Dayton but otherwise relatively confident about Bronco inclusion:

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NC State pulled away from Pitt in the 2nd half to advance in the ACC tourney. An upset loss there could have dropped NC St below SCU (if you believe all the mock brackets are indicative of what the committee will do on Sunday), providing some extra cushion for our chances at a bye. NC St plays Virginia tomorrow, which will presumably be as respectable a loss as our loss to Gonzaga unless it’s a really ugly blowout. So I think NC St is safely above us.

That leaves A&M and Texas as teams above us that we want to see choke vs a lesser team. Texas plays Ole Miss at 4 PM today. A&M plays tomorrow.

479

We need a SMU loss too

480

Yup. Three schadenfreude games going on right now: SMU, Auburn, and UCF. We want Cincinnati to beat UCF today, and then lose to Arizona tomorrow.

481

Too bad putative “good ACC basketball team” Louisville appears to be terrible, or at least is today.

EDIT: I never doubted ‘em.

482

Thank you, Nashty for the ol reverse jinx.

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483

I wouldn’t mind seeing Louisville on the other side of a 6-11 game based on what I just watched…

This Power Conference tournament settings and shooting are pretty forgettable, at least in these rounds.

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