2018 NCAA Mock Tournament Selection

[bukie]

Another year, another mock selection.

 

Interestingly, the NCAA is now using the tier criteria that I'd been putting together for this in the past for their selection software, instead of RPI. It's still based off the RPI rank, but baby steps I guess.

 

Even better, someone did all the work of doing the nitty gritty reports on all the potential tournament teams, so that saves me a ton of work and saves us a step.

 

http://warrennolan.com/basketball/2018/nitty-team

 

So thanks for that.

 

If you want to participate, poat or pm me by end of next Tuesday 3/6 two lists:

 

-Top 20 teams from those on that site

-Bottom 20 teams from those on the site

 

The site has the RPI top 105 plus the conference champs for each conference (which, spoiler, was the exact list of teams I put up for consideration each year), which should be plenty. If for some reason there is a team not on that list that you think should get considered, say something.

[bukie]

Murray State wins the OVC to get the first auto bid. Definitely the best OVC team by far, their profile is arguably borderline for at-large consideration, though their best win of the season happened to be last night.

[UMFan83]

The state of Illinois is guaranteed to have a tourney team this year as Illinois State plays Loyola-Chicago in the MVC championship today. Loyola has an outside shot at an at-large if they lose but not super likely

[UMFan83]

Also many of you probably know of this site already but there’s a really good site out there that is basically a free KenPom

 

http://www.barttorvik.com

[bukie]

Radford wins the Big South, nowhere near at-large worthy, their best win was beating UC Davis on a neutral court. They were the 2 seed in the Big South, so they weren't terrible, but they are a borderline opening round team as is given no other upsets.

[bukie]

Loyola wins the MVC auto bid, preventing potential bid theft. Loyola has a legit at-large profile, their best win being at Florida, worst loss being at home to Indiana State. They have an RPI of 28, so we'll see how closely the real committee treats that number still, but even their predictive metrics are pretty good.

[bukie]

Michigan wins the Big Ten, which...they were going to the tournament anyway.

[bukie]

Lipscomb wins the A-Sun as the 2 seed, and while they played well in conference, overall they're probably the worst team with an auto bid so far.

[UMFan83]

I'm sure you can all guess the teams but just curious, which resume is better, or are they pretty even?

 

Team A:

 

RPI - 15

KenPom - 6

Bart Torvik - 6

SOS - 108

NC SOS - 250

VS Top 50 - 2-4 (2 H, 1 R, 3 N)

VS Top 100 - 7-4

Q1 Record - 3-4

Losses outside of Q1 - 0

 

Team B:

 

RPI - 13

KenPom - 9

Bart Torvik - 7

SOS - 62

NC SOS - 283

VS Top 50 - 6-4 (3 H, 5 R, 2 N)

VS Top 100 - 10-6

Q1 Record - 6-5

Losses outside of Q1 - 2 (including a Q3 loss)

[bukie]

Iona wins the MAAC as the 4 seed after top seed and decent quality Rider took their worst loss of the year in the quarters. Ionas best win is a home win vs Rider, with no other even decent wins of note.

 

UNC Greensboro wins the Southern as the top seed, and are a decent quality tourney team, with a win at NC State and 3 Q2 wins.

 

St. Marys lost to BYU in the WCC semis which puts them in the precarious position of having a worse profile than Loyola going into Selection Sunday.

[weis21]

I always really like following this thread every year so thanks to bukie (and umfan and others that contribute).

 

it's by far the busiest time of year for me so it's hard to keep up with all that's going on but i love college basketball and this makes it way easier. please keep doing this and thank you.

[bukie]

Reminder that if you want to participate just get me the top 20 and bottom 20 on the nolan site by the end of the night.

[SouthSideRyan]

My methodology that I'm certainly not sold on.

 

G1: Wins worth 2, losses worth .5

G2: WIns worth 1, losses worth 1

G3: Wins worth .5, losses worth 2

G4: Wins worth nothing, losses worth 3.

 

Rounded up halves on losses, and down on wins.

 

Did not strictly adhere to it, but just ran the numbers for the teams off the nitty gritty in order to kind of group teams in similar areas with raw numbers, then worked from those groups individual breakdowns (obviously not all wins or losses in a group are created equal) to try to establish a hierarchy

[bukie]

Gonzaga won the WCC to prevent BYU from likely stealing an at-large bid.

 

Wright State wins the Horizon as the 2 seed. Not the best profile, their best win being at Northern Kentucky.

[bukie]

Charleston wins the CAA as the 1 seed, with a not terrible profile. Their best 3 wins were all Northeastern, who was probably the better team overall but could never find a way to beat Charleston. Probably a 14ish seed.

 

LIU Brooklyn wins the NEC as a 4 seed, and is now probably the weakest team in the field as an auto bid. Congrats on your play-in game, LIU-Brooklyn!

 

South Dakota State wins the Summt as the top seed and by far the best team in that conference. Their result metrics are much better than their predictive metrics, but they do have a neutral win against Buffalo as a Q1 victory, and no really bad losses, they could be looking at a 13 seed.

[UMFan83]

Missed the deadline but if can give me til like noon today I’ll submit something

[bukie]

My top 20:

1. Virginia

2. Villanova

3. Duke

4. Kansas

5. Cincinnati

6. Purdue

7. Xavier

8. North Carolina

9. Michigan State

10. Michigan

11. Auburn

12. Texas Tech

13. Gonzaga

14. Tennessee

15. Wichita State

16. Clemson

17. West Virginia

18. Ohio State

19. Nevada

20. Kentucky

 

Bottom 20:

Bethune-Cookman (MEAC)

SWAC

LIU-Brooklyn (NEC)

Florida Gulf Coast

SE Louisiana (Southland)

UNC Asheville

Radford (Big South)

Penn (Ivy)

Northern Kentucky

Wagner

Iona (MAAC)

Bradley

Lipscomb (A-Sun)

Fresno State

Wright State (Horizon)

Southern Illinois

Furman

UC Davis (Big West)

Montana (Big Sky)

William and Mary

East Tennessee State

[bukie]

Missed the deadline but if can give me til like noon today I’ll submit something

DO IT

[UMFan83]

Top 20

 

1. Virginia

2. Villanova

3. Duke

4. Kansas

5. Xavier

6. Purdue

7. UNC

8. Auburn

9. Cincinnati

10. Michigan

11. MSU

12. Tennessee

13. Wichita State

14. Texas Tech

15. Clemson

16. Gonzaga

17. Ohio State

18. West Virginia

19. Kentucky

20. Houston

 

I'm not sure I can make a good bottom 20. By SWAC, you just mean whoever wins the SWAC right? It has Grambling on there but listed as ineligable

 

My stab at it, mostly in order on the site:

 

Bethune-Cookman

SWAC Winner

LIU-Brooklyn

Southeastern Louisiana

FGCU

UNC-A

Radford

Penn

Wagner

Iona

Northern Kentucky

Lipscomb

Bradley

Fresno State

Wright State

SIU

Marshall

Furman

W&M

UC Davis

[SouthSideRyan]

Here's what I sent to bukie last night:

 

VA

Nova

Duke

KU

Xavier

Purdue

North Carolina

Michigan State

Cincinnati

Texas Tech

Auburn

Tennessee

Michigan

Gonzaga

Clemson

West Virginia

Wichita State

Ohio State

Kentucky

Florida

 

Southern Illinois

Toledo

Furman

Bucknell

Utah Valley

South Dakota

UC Davis

Penn

Lipscomb

Wright State

Northern Kentucky

UNC Asheville

SE Lousiana

FL Gulf Coast

Iona

Radford

Wagner

Long Island

SWAC(Grambling is ineligible for the tournament due to APR)

Bethune Cookman

[bukie]

Based on that, there's a clear top 4 on the SCurve for now:

1. Virginia

2. Villanova

3. Duke

4. Kansas

 

Based on bottom 20s, here are the clear one bid leagues:

1. MEAC

2. SWAC

3. NEC (LIU-Brooklyn)

4. Big South (Radford)

5. Southland

6. Horizon (Wright State)

7. Atlantic Sun (Lipscomb)

8. Big West

9. Big Sky

 

Eliminating every team that everyone picked for bottom 20, we're still left with 95 teams for at most 64 bids, so that can be pared down another 20 yet with room to spare.

 

Next step is to rank the one bid champs/potential champs from the bottom up and rank the 2-3-4 seeds from the top 20s we posted, along with choosing the next 12 teams and the bottom 20 to pare down again.

[SouthSideRyan]

For the one bid champs, are we just ranking those 9 teams, ranking the one bid teams beyond those 9, or ranking all one bid champs including those 9?

 

ETA: And are we eliminating 20 more teams beyond the initial 20 we personally sent, or is there a group of 20 who are out of at-large consideration we should be removing?

[bukie]

Eliminate 20 beyond the 20 we already sent, I'll list them all later when I don't have to do everything via mobile.

 

One bid rankings should include all potential single bid leagues which is all outside the top 7 (ACC, SEC, BE, B12, B1G, P12, American)

[SouthSideRyan]

Thanks.

[SouthSideRyan]

Non-Powers

 

MEAC

SWAC

LIU

Radford

Iona

Southland (SE Lousiana)

Wright State

Lipscomb

Ivy (Penn)

UC Davis (Big West)

Patriot (Bucknell)

Sun Belt (Louisiana)

Big Sky (Montana)

UNC Greensboro

Charleston

America East (Vermont)

MAC (Buffalo)

South Dakota State

Murray State

Loyola

WAC (NMSU)

CUSA (MTSU)

A10 (URI)

MWC (Nevada)

Gonzaga