bukie

The numbers do not suggest they should be out of the tournament, not even close. You're right, saw a video of Gard whining about the officiating in his post game interview found it quit ironic and entertaining. Although, I will agree Wisconsin got screwed by some bad calls, not the hook and hold by Davison but, on an out of bounds call late in the game. The phantom 5th foul call on Trice was awful, and the out of bounds call was dicey. The hook and hold on Davison was overdue if anything.

Automatic bids from the weekend: Liberty - A-Sun Winthrop - Big South Loyola-Chicago - MVC Morehead State - Ohio Valley Tonight's winners of auto bids: Southern - UNC Greensboro Sun Bent - Appalachian State Appalachian State won as the 4 seed, putting them in prime position for a 16 matched up with Michigan, so they can win on a 3 at the buzzer.

if its not too late ill do this later today It's not too late, I already changed my mind for the last 2 of that bottom 10. PSU's profile is super weird. 40th in NET, 3 wins vs Q1, one bad loss, 51st in strength of record. Honestly, if they somehow won 3 games in the BTT, beating Wisconsin and Iowa...they could be a tourney team at 13-14.

Winthrop wins the Big South convincingly at 22-1, might be a situation where they get seeded higher than an at-large, they've had a good run. Liberty wins the A-Sun. Loyola wins the MVC, Drake squarely on the bubble discussion

It always seems like KenPom has a blind spot for them but yeah, probably more an indictment on the bubble/first 4-12 out teams on not capitalizing on a clearly bad Wisconsin team. Plus obviously the whole COVID stuff keeping non-conference/pre-season tournaments down. I thought they were way overrated, preseason AP poll had them at 7, when they clearly benefited from an easier in conference schedule last season. I was rooting for them last night, despise Iowa in every way shape and form, as some have mentioned there's not a player on that Iowa roster that's remotely likable. Was surprised the officials decided to call a hook and hold on Davidson after letting him get away with it earlier in the game perhaps, they warned him after the first time. Still, though, I think they'll get in, more on reputation than anything, because the numbers probably suggest they should be out. The numbers do not suggest they should be out of the tournament, not even close.

Wins at Maryland, Rutgers, MSU and home vs Louisville and Loyola is plenty of good wins, and they have no bad losses. Nobody's making them a top 4 seed, but they're in the 7-8 category at least.

The A-10 final will be St. Bonaventure vs VCU, which should allow bubble teams to breathe a sigh of relief, as the A-10 for once shouldn't steal a bid.

KenPom strength of schedule rankings are hilarious right now:

Also, Morehead State won the OVC final over Belmont, which means the only path for Belmont in the tournament is via an at-large bid.

Next step is to list the top 10 and bottom 10 of those teams to place the top of the field and remove some of the excess. For me: Top 10: Bottom 10:

I included a few additional teams that I think have better resumes than some of the teams previously mentioned, just so the conversation can be complete: - Colgate (they're #9 in NET so hey, at least add them to the discussion) - Kentucky (KP is actually fairly decent, mid-60s NET) - Penn State (KP is like #34, #48 in NET, terrible overall record) - Belmont (blew 2 games late that were meaningless for conference title, good overall record) - Minnesota (their profile is surprisingly similar to MSU, but opposite trajectory) That puts it at 68 teams total initially (seemed like a good number). Here are the teams:

First step is to compile a full list of teams that deserve at-large consideration.

Also, if anyone else wants to chip in and have their picks affect the bracket, feel free, just don't troll the system on purpose. Colgate, despite their #9 NET ranking, is not a 3 seed.

We took a year off (along with everyone else) but we're back. Let's make a mock bracket based on the latest in bracket making technology and committee selection tools. The NCAA selection committee uses NET rankings now instead of RPI (which is a hugely good change). Latest NET rankings are here: https://www.ncaa.com/rankings/basketball-men/d1/ncaa-mens-basketball-net-rankings Other useful measures: KenPom, still the gold standard of team efficiency ratings: https://kenpom.com/ Torvik rankings, similar to KP but have a Wins above Bubble metric that is a valuable tool in relative strength of resumes for teams: https://barttorvik.com/# ESPN's BPI ratings, aka a source of the Strength of Record metric, another valuable tool in relative strength of resume for teams: https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/bpi Sagarin ratings, now with a Recent metric showing how effective teams are more recently: http://sagarin.com/sports/cbsend.htm The rules: - 68 team bracket, 31 auto bids (Ivy has opted out of the season), 37 at-large bids - Entire tournament is in Indiana around the Indy area. Brackets don't have names yet but they won't be called East/West/Midwest/South this season. - Schedules are different this year, with the First Four starting on Thursday instead of Tuesday and the first two rounds of games running into the following Tuesday. - Committee will effectively seed on a straight S-curve this year with a few caveats: top 4 teams in a conference are in different regions, no rematches until the second round if possible, no conference 3x rematches until Elite Eight.

I'm game if anyone else is, it's a weird year but somebody has to make a bracket.

Giorgi Bezhanishvili is a trip in interviews...

On the topic of Seabs, he's responsible for one of the all time great moments in Hawks history:

I wasn't completely aware of this, but apparently Patrick Kane is about to jump into the top 5 for career points by an American born player: 1. Mike Modano - 1374 2. Phil Housley - 1232 3. Jeremy Roenick - 1216 4. Keith Tkachuk - 1065 5. Joe Mullen - 1063 6. Patrick Kane - 1057

I was concerned tonight's game would be a blowout without Ayo. Looks like I was right.

MSU went old school thugball from the outset, and Illinois didn't respond well, and couldn't make FTs.

Zach Lavine is averaging 32.0 PPG for the month of February, which is the 31st best Bulls scoring month of all time, tied with a Jordan month. 1 to 30 are all Jordan. So are 33-48.

So far they've landed 2 top 100 recruits in wings Luke Goode and Ramses Melendez. Part of me wonders if Frazier and Williams stick around another year since this one is a freebie, but probably not. Cockburn is not on any NBA draft lists, so unless he wants to play overseas to make money, I'm not 100% sure he leaves either.

Hawks somehow with 2nd most points in the NHL. It's because they have played like 4 more games than anyone else, but still.

That's what I'm guessing, get it to, like, 32 and then split into two levels for promotion/relegation.

Illinois now playing Nebraska on Friday, as Nebraska sets up their every-other-day schedule to make up 14 games in 30 days.