My latest bracketology here, and I feel much more confident in this one as opposed to my last one two weeks ago. As always, this is if the tournament started TODAY, not how I feel it will look like in March. Automatic bids in ALL CAPS.
Couple of things, I rewarded two teams with bids off of their latest performances in La Salle and Virginia. Yes, I know La Salle just lost its last game after wins against VCU and Butler, but their resume still warrants a bid IMO. Also Virginia, yes i know their RPI is in the 90's because of some very questionable losses, but the fact remains they are 5-0 against RPI top 100 teams, so I feel like the committee is going to reward them for that. Also they have won their last four games which doesn't hurt.
As for the top few lines, I dropped Butler one line as well as Oregon after their recent losses. Yes, I know Oregon was without Artis, but that doesn't excuse for a 24-point loss to a mediocre Stanford team, so they drop. Any other questions or comments let me know, my next bracketology will have matchups and regions, I just felt for this one I wanted to really focus on the seeding process before I started focusing on that.
You are making a grave error in including Virginia.
-They may be 5-0 vs the top 100 but only one was away from Home. -They have lost 5 games to teams ranked lower than 100. -They lost a game to Old Dominion (#325). -They have an RPI of 96. -The worst rpi to make the tournament was USC two years ago with 67. New Mexico and Air Force made it with 74 ad 70 respectively before but that was before the RPI was tweaked to account for the location of the game. -OOC SOS is a brutal 334. The committee won't even look at a bubble team with that.
So in summary get them out of there. They aren't even on the radar for the first dozen teams left out.
LAOJoe, I know the numbers, and after a review I think you are right at the moment. Virginia's losses are horrendous as we all diagram, but I do believe they will be there in March. Maybe I just forcasted this one because let's face it, right now you could pick 16 or 17 teams in the "last four in" category and all could legitimately have an argument of being in the tournament as well as being out of the tournament. I just look at the top 100 record and it's hard to argue against that, although the bad losses may be just as astonishing.
I do agree with you though, LAO, and I think the committee will have a really hard time figuring out what to do with this team if their RPI ends up in the high 50's with losses like that but such a good mark against the top tier competition they faced.
I just looked at your most recent bracket... So you have Southern Mississippi right on the bubble, and out actually, who has no good wins and a below average SOS, and you don't even have Virginia on the bubble watch. I have them in (Souhern Miss), but i'm seriously reconsidering their resume because the numbers look awfully similar to Utah State several years back when they were ranked nationally and didn't get an at-large bid because they ddint beat anybody. They just had a gawdy recrod and a good RPI because of it. 0-4 against RPI top 100 and reallly only two games against Memphis for a chance to add any type of decent win to the resume should not impress people,. If you did one of those "blind resumes" that CBS and ESPN do when they don't show the school name, just the computer numbers and record vs. top 100 and key wins, Virginia's looks better than Southern Miss and you are disregarding the Cavaliers completely. That's a bad idea.
Southern Miss is on the bubble but not really that close. They are just a team hanging in there that needs to continue winning. They beat Memphis twice and lose in their tournament and they could get in. Their RPI and decent away losses keep them squarely in the hunt but they are still fairly out because they have 0 wins in the top 100. Same reason I kept Kentucky put until this week. USM is simply a team that is on the Radar and the reason most people have them in is because technically they are the conference leaders with 0 conference losses and the highest rpi. So an auto bid. I simply choose to leave it as Memphis.
