Creme Bracketology 3/4

[Plebe]

He's got Tennessee as an 11-seed? Do I have that right? I thought he told us yesterday that Tennessee was "out" of the tourney. No?

A couple of spots on the projected bubble opened up because Missouri State and Miami of Ohio, after their respective losses dropped them from the top of the MVC and MAC conference standings, are no longer penciled in as presumptive auto bids. (Those auto bids are now projected to Drake and Central Michigan, who were already in the bracket regardless.) We now see that 3 of his projected 11-seeds are at-large teams, whereas before only one of them was.

It's never only about what one team did. What all the other teams did matters just as much.

 

[donalddoowop]

Baylor will gladly take their Bracket. Don't see any team that's capable of pulling off the upset. Oregon St has size to match up with Baylor, but don't think they're talented enough. In every other bracket, I can see the #1 seeds losing to the #2 seeds.

Didn't they eliminate Baylor before when Baylor had the most talent?

 

[Golden Husky]

If Mississippi State wins out will the Bulldogs get a No. 1 seed ahead of the Louisville-Notre Dame loser?

 

[Plebe]

If Mississippi State wins out will the Bulldogs get a No. 1 seed ahead of the Louisville-Notre Dame loser?

Frankly I doubt it, unless one or the other (Louisville or ND) loses before the ACC title game. Mississippi State's resume just doesn't have the top-shelf wins. Their best wins will have been against South Carolina, a projected 4-seed.

 

[Vowelguy]

Frankly I doubt it, unless one or the other (Louisville or ND) loses before the ACC title game. Mississippi State's resume just doesn't have the top-shelf wins. Their best wins will have been against South Carolina, a projected 4-seed.

Agreed. ND/Lou would need a loss before the final or a blowout loss to the other for MSU to even have a chance. And even then, if Ore wins the PAC, they likely leap over them. Dawgs are looking at #6 or #5 overall.

 

[FridaFriend]

He seems to have made a mistake in his scheme. He still has BYU as 9 seed in Chicago, but he doesn't have the West Coast Conference for 2 teams.

 

[DallasBUFan]

Didn't they eliminate Baylor before when Baylor had the most talent?

Yep....I wouldn't say last year was a talented as this year, but the year before for freakin sure!

However, both times they had a good dynamic post player that was a Sr. This year's center is no Gulich.

 

[SportsPageMike]

Miss St is ranked 5th. UConn 2. No Miss St in Albany. Stanford Maryland or NC State in Albany Maryland would be a good draw .

Mississippi State will not be playing in Albany. Lets wait and see.

 

[MainefanSC]

He has TN in as the worst of the Last four in

Buffalo
Indiana
TCU
Tennessee

TN is in position for the Ms. Irrelevant Award

Interesting, LSU is first of first 4 out so the TN/ LSU 8-9 matchup should decide it.

Please help me out here. If UT was one of the last four in how is it they are an 11 and not a 16?????????????? How in anyone's math do they get such a high seed???????????

 

[Vowelguy]

Please help me out here. If UT was one of the last four in how is it they are an 11 and not a 16?????????????? How in anyone's math do they get such a high seed???????????

Because there are automatic bids given to weak conferences. Those teams would never make the tournament on their own, and they are generally not very good.. Those ~20 teams get the #12-#16 seeds in each region. The last at-large team to make the field is always an 11 or 12 seed.

 

[MainefanSC]

Because there are automatic bids given to weak conferences. Those teams would never make the tournament on their own, and they are generally not very good.. Those ~20 teams get the #12-#16 seeds in each region. The last at-large team to make the field is always an 11 or 12 seed.

Thanks for the clarification. I should have been able to see that. Just not happy UT gets in at all. The only thing they have going for them is that they are UT.

 

[Vowelguy]

Thanks for the clarification. I should have been able to see that. Just not happy UT gets in at all. The only thing they have going for them is that they are UT.

No not really.
The resumes of teams on the bubble in WCBB are notoriously thin. I dont know if I'd put them in, but they are easily in the mix given that they've done, relative to what others have done.

 

[FridaFriend]

I would have left off Clemson, Tennessee, Indiana, Buffalo, and BYU and replaced them with Southern Cal (USC), Utah, Minnesota, West Virginia, and Butler.

 

[willtalk]

A couple of spots on the projected bubble opened up because Missouri State and Miami of Ohio, after their respective losses dropped them from the top of the MVC and MAC conference standings, are no longer penciled in as presumptive auto bids. (Those auto bids are now projected to Drake and Central Michigan, who were already in the bracket regardless.) We now see that 3 of his projected 11-seeds are at-large teams, whereas before only one of them was.

It's never only about what one team did. What all the other teams did matters just as much.

It seems obvious to me what Creme has been doing. He has been using justifications like this to include certain teams and keep numbers up from specific conferences. Why should a couple of slots opening up automatically go to Tenn or the SEC?

I mentioned long ago when he reduced the Pac 12's numbers to 6 while increasing the SEC to 8 that he was cherry picking to set up a scenario to justify more teams from the SEC. The whole idea is to discern the strength of a conference before league play begins to get an objective view of what their games mean against each other. Except in a case like Tenn where they just do a complete nose dive. The Pac 12 and the ACC started with equal number of bids as dictated by their out of conference rankings as the strongest leagues. Well now the Pac 12 has equal number of bids to the formally considered weak Big 10, while the SEC has jumped them with 7. Did these leagues get stronger based on playing themselves?

When the teams in the Pac 12 started beating each other and acquiring losses he punished them far more them equally if not far more than the loses teams acquired playing in obviously weaker conferences. He certainly didn't replace the teams that lost in the Pac 12 with the better teams in the Pac 12, but instead chose to replace them with teams from weaker conferences that the teams he favored were in.

I remember that I wrote a post long ago in respect to a pattern he displaced geared to justifying his long term term agenda . It is akin to heating the water of a pot slowly so that the frog does not recognize he is being boiled and jump out to save himself. Fortunately Creme does not pick the actual brackets. Still he is given the job of doing so by ESPN and should come up with a far more objective product. He is being paid to do so by a major News outlet and more should be expected from him than someone just posting on a site. In that context the guy is a hack period.

 

[LoTrader]

Thanks for the clarification. I should have been able to see that. Just not happy UT gets in at all. The only thing they have going for them is that they are UT.

Not surprised at all that Creme is finding any crack to justify keeping UT in the conversation for being included in the NCAA 64 team tournament. Last year, he had UT as a #3 seed, which was a joke. UT should not have even been a host site last year.

 

[ochoopsfan]

I would have left off Clemson, Tennessee, Indiana, Buffalo, and BYU and replaced them with Southern Cal (USC), Utah, Minnesota, West Virginia, and Butler.

And add in Arizona who played their hearts out in a double OT loss to Oregon State.

 

[Plebe]

It seems obvious to me what Creme has been doing. He has been using justifications like this to include certain teams and keep numbers up from specific conferences. Why should a couple of slots opening up automatically go to Tenn or the SEC?

They didn't. The other at-large teams he moved into his latest bracket are Buffalo, Kansas State and TCU, none of which are in the SEC. And LSU is one of the teams he moved out from his previous bracket.

Exactly which Pac-12 teams do you think have earned a bid? Utah and Arizona were in some of his previous brackets, but both have fallen way out of RPI range (75 and 81, respectively). USC has a decent RPI but their resume is *very* light on quality wins (Cal and UCLA are their only top 50 wins).

You want to be mad at someone for "too many" SEC teams or "not enough" Pac-12 teams getting in?

• Be mad at Oregon State and USC, both of whom dropped nonconference games to Texas A&M.
• Be mad at Florida State, UNC and Texas, who dropped nonconference games to LSU, Auburn and Tennessee, respectively.
• Be mad at Utah and Arizona, both of whom scheduled so poorly in the nonconference (#307 and #322 NC SOS) that they picked up zero quality OOC wins and their RPIs are now too low for consideration.

Or are you also going to blame Creme for making those teams lose games and schedule poorly?

 

[Vowelguy]

It seems obvious to me what Creme has been doing. He has been using justifications like this to include certain teams and keep numbers up from specific conferences.

Please, enlighten us of the evidence of this historically, and why he would be doing this.

And please explain why one of his previous brackets excluded Tenn. Did he have amnesia on his master plan that week?

His job is to predict what the committee will do. He has never said this is his personal opinion.

 

[SECbbfan24]

It seems obvious to me what Creme has been doing. He has been using justifications like this to include certain teams and keep numbers up from specific conferences. Why should a couple of slots opening up automatically go to Tenn or the SEC?

I would take what Creme says with a grain of salt right now. This is all just his projections. His predictions haven't been exactly perfect over the years.

The SEC has been very weak this year compared to other years and actually have an overall low conference RPI, ranked 5th among all conferences, other years it usually was in the top 2 which is why you saw a lot more SEC teams. That said, some of the OOC performances and scheduling will be a big factor.

I think there are gonna be many who will be left out this year though.

 

[Jmsdawg]

No not really.
The resumes of teams on the bubble in WCBB are notoriously thin. I dont know if I'd put them in, but they are easily in the mix given that they've done, relative to what others have done.

Does an LSU win in SEC tournament knock Tennessee out?

 

[Vowelguy]

Does an LSU win in SEC tournament knock Tennessee out?

I would think so.

 

[Tonyc]

There are alot of teams that have won 20 games that deserve to be in the NCAAs. Tenn has 11 losses. That in itself knocks them out.

 

[Plebe]

There are alot of teams that have won 20 games that deserve to be in the NCAAs. Tenn has 11 losses. That in itself knocks them out.

There are at-large teams selected every year that have double-digit losses. Oklahoma last year got in with a 16-14 record. Arizona State at 21-12 was a #7 seed.

 

[Wbbfan1]

Another Bracket.

Women’s basketball bracketology: The second committee reveal

 

[mbr33ct]

He's got Tennessee as an 11-seed? Do I have that right? I thought he told us yesterday that Tennessee was "out" of the tourney. No?

With Tenn, the "bracketologists" have them on a hourly watch.