bukie

This is the first time in Big Ten tournament history where the top 4 seeds made the semis.

UCSB wins, so they'll face Long Beach State in the Big West final. I bumped Washington off the S-Curve and put a Pac-12 placeholder in there for now with Arizona.

Colorado beats Cal. The new favorite for the Pac-12 reverts to LOL, as it will be decided by two teams with RPIs in the high 70s. Which are also the second and third highest RPI teams in the conference now. Cal now has to depend on its at-large resume, which includes no top 70 wins, because, well, no other Pac-12 teams are in the top 70 anymore.

New Mexico wins. They're now the odds-on favorite to win the MWC auto-bid.

As far as underseeded, if New Mexico hangs on here, I think they're definitely higher than a 7 seed.

Sure, but then I can't call it a Rank 16 list anymore, can I?

Meanwhile, Cal is four minutes away from letting the Pac-12 steal an additional bid.

Stage 5, by midnight CST Saturday 1) Discuss (in the thread) any potential movement among teams already in the S-Curve. If anyone appears criminally under or over-seeded, make note of it. 2) Place the new S-Curve entrants into the bracket, aside from the final five at-large teams, because they'll be busy elsewhere. 3) Rank the Middle 16 in order 4) Rank the 5 last at-larges on the S-Curve (Miami, USF, BYU, NC State, Drexel) with the 11 potentials (so it's a rank 16 list). And I bet you thought they were safe.

Heh, that's a little funny. Temple is still #16, despite no one putting them at the top of their list (among those that included them). That's how much variance there was in the picks this time. It's a clear #1, too, which is all the more amusing. Stage 4 results: S-Curve (top 24, bottom 28): The middle 16 (the 7-10 seeds, basically): Other potentials and spoilers(11):

If I was an opposing Big Ten coach, I'd support Weber too. Great guy, slowly running the Illinois program into the ground.

Everybody sent me their lists, so I'll just post mine now: Top 16(+1): Memphis (C-USA) Creighton (MVC) UNLV (MWC) St Mary's (WCC) Temple Louisville Gonzaga Florida Florida State Kansas State Vanderbilt Iowa State Purdue Cincinnati Notre Dame Murray State (OVC) St Louis The leftover 20: New Mexico California (Pac-12) Virginia Alabama Connecticut Long Beach State (Big West) Harvard (Ivy) San Diego State Texas NC State VCU (CAA) West Virginia BYU Miami Drexel Xavier Southern Miss South Florida Colorado State Washington

It's the same as wins/losses early on looking better later in the year. Missouri beating the tar out of Cal and Notre Dame looks a lot better now than it did then. Same with IU beating Notre Dame.

Arizona jumps into the pool of "Hey, they may actually win that conference tourney instead of a bid-worthy team" teams. If Colorado beats Cal in the nightcap, then an at-large bid is surely stolen. Perhaps from Cal, even, but probably not.

I wish you also an enjoyable weekend, smack.

Purdue's floor at this point, I feel like, is a 9. Their ceiling would probably be a 6. Just total guesswork without any numbers in front of me though. I WILL HAVE ALL THE NUMBERS IN 90 MINUTES. AT LEAST, FOR WHOEVER SENDS THEM TO ME. Haha, I'm just tossing out guesses. My list is in as I'm sure you know. Actually, I don't have one from you yet today.

Purdue's floor at this point, I feel like, is a 9. Their ceiling would probably be a 6. Just total guesswork without any numbers in front of me though. I WILL HAVE ALL THE NUMBERS IN 90 MINUTES. AT LEAST, FOR WHOEVER SENDS THEM TO ME.

I'll be able to tell you more in 90 minutes...

Long Beach State won in the Big West semis today, preserving an extra at-large bid for an additional day.

Pouring salt on the Northwestern fan's wound: http://basketballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=2125

Xavier beat Dayton by 1. Tough luck for Dayton, but it looks like Dayton won't be in Dayton for the tournament this year.

One other thing: Any team that is still alive in a multi-bid tourney (i.e. a conference tourney that isn't already on the board in the bottom 16 spots, so A-10, Pac 12, MWC, SEC, etc) and isn't in the field will be put back in play tomorrow to account for possible upsets. Right now, that looks like it'll include St. Bonaventure, UMass, Mississippi, and Marshall, with several others possible from the late games.

Yes. But include Temple in the top 17.

Nothing to play for. Locked into a top two overall seed regardless.

Tonight we find out exactly where the back end of the bubble is, tomorrow we compare them once more to teams left in consideration. IT IS ALL A PROCESS. :)

I actually kinda like Xavier's resume more than St. Louis'. I don't get how St. Louis is being considered a lock or for a 9 seed. I like St. Louis's resume quite a bit, and did before I knew where they were seeded by the wiseguys (my main resource for this stuff is Glockner's Bubble Watch on SI.com, which doesn't give seeds but is a good place to find any bubble team's RPI/SOS/good wins/bad losses all in one link). I can't really explain why I like it, but they only have 2 losses to teams outside of our NCAA discussion, which is fewer than just about any of the other teams they're being compared with. Their resume is a lot like Northwestern's, except their non-con schedule exploits the RPI system better. Granted, their schedule somewhat games the system, but they pretty much clobbered the bad teams they played (which I like even though it probably doesn't matter). Both the bad losses I mentioned were by single digits on the road. I'm sure some will disagree, and that's fine - that's why we have a committee. I understand, but if you're going to give St. Louis credit for a lack of bad losses, then Northwestern gets to be the king of that discussion, with zero losses outside the top 70 Pomeroy, and 6 losses by a bucket or in OT (I mean, they just really needed to close out ONE other game). St. Louis is a better team easily (thus the gap in Pomeroy rating, largely due to the average margin of victory), but the RPI resumes are scary close.