Bracketology - Jan 17 edition

[BRS24]

Women's Bracketology: Will Stanford miss NCAA tournament for first time since 1987?

The Cardinal are the

www.espn.com

No changes to the top 16 from the Tuesday post. Here's a look at the bubble:

 

[Plebe]

His comments on the bubble for this latest update are interesting:

"The most difficult aspect of putting the bracket together isn't determining the No. 1 seeds or the top 16. It's figuring out teams 71 through 76. The pool of NCAA tournament-worthy teams isn't deep. The group listed under Next Four Out each projection typically consists of teams that are a solid win away from the field or knocking on the door. Not this season. Those teams aren't particularly close to making the field despite mathematically being only five spots away. The bubble is that weak. ..."

Teams 71-76 per this graphic are George Mason, Clemson, Columbia, Seton Hall, Fairfield, and Colorado. Stated another way, he sees Stanford and St. Joseph's as the only "first four out" teams in serious contention for a bid.

 

[Bigboote]

"The most difficult aspect of putting the bracket together isn't determining the No. 1 seeds or the top 16. It's figuring out teams 71 through 76. The pool of NCAA tournament-worthy teams isn't deep. The group listed under Next Four Out each projection typically consists of teams that are a solid win away from the field or knocking on the door. Not this season. Those teams aren't particularly close to making the field despite mathematically being only five spots away. The bubble is that weak. ..."

The plethora of teams that just aren't that good (or the paucity of teams that are good) may be why I'm not enjoying watching as many games this years as in the past several. Also a lot of the good teams play a style that's just not that fun to watch, so it's not all on the crappy teams.

 

[Bone Dog]

Colorado? Yikes!

 

[packwrap]

Talent all at the top of the heap. Best group of 7 good schools ever. Probably best top 16 too.

This makes for great 'big games', and for an excellent sweet 16.

It's leaving little talent, however, for mid majors and the bottom of the conference.

Only non power schools with top 100 recruits for next yr are Harvard, Villanova and Creighton

 

[mudcat]

Talent all at the top of the heap. Best group of 7 good schools ever. Probably best top 16 too.

This makes for great 'big games', and for an excellent sweet 16.

It's leaving little talent, however, for mid majors and the bottom of the conference.

Only non power schools with top 100 recruits for next yr are Harvard, Villanova and Creighton

Creighton has 3 of them, will be interesting to see what Flanery can get out of them.

 

[Plebe]

The plethora of teams that just aren't that good (or the paucity of teams that are good) may be why I'm not enjoying watching as many games this years as in the past several. Also a lot of the good teams play a style that's just not that fun to watch, so it's not all on the crappy teams.

A glimpse at the teams ranked in the 40-60 range of the NET certainly corroborates the extraordinary weakness of the bubble teams.