My recollection, which is admittedly vague, is that Charlie has addressed this in the past. I think he is claimed that he doesn't know all the rules about conference meetings, but creating a bracket that addresses all of those concerns is a royal pain, and not worth it for bracket that's probably going to change in a few days anyway given the twice weekly updates. I think he intends on addressing those issues in the last bracket prior to the selection committee meeting.
In addition to being a royal pain to implement, it can also lead to pain reactions that aren't fun to field. "How on earth can you place my favorite team as a three seed they obviously have a better body of work than every other three seed and better than some of the two seed so they ought to be at least a two seed". His response might be that they naturally qualify as a two seed but something's got to give due to conference makeups and it was his judgment that moving them from a 2 to a 3 was the best option to accommodate the conference meet up rules.
It's also possible I'm thinking about how I would construct brackets if I had to do them twice a week, but it might be worth getting some clarification from him figure out whether he's not incorporating it because he blundered or whether he is not incorporating it because he doesn't plan to deal with that until the end. He might argue that he's prepared to address any questions about seeding levels in terms of strength but not the movements necessary for conference makeup rules.
Phil, interesting take on what Charlie might be thinking.
From my perch, I would respectfully disagree with just about everything you offer as his intentions and/or plausible motives leading up to Selection Sunday.
Several reasons behind my disagreement: First, Charlie and ESPN made the decision to go to twice a week updates starting in early January - the first time he/they have ever taken this step so far out from Selection Sunday. Why? IMO, this was simply done to stimulate interest. The WBB community is the fickle mistress he is married to, and losing interest would lead to divorce.
Second, I suspect as more people in a growing WCBB community voice their reactions to him, the better his job security is with the ESPN folks. In the current landscape, Charlie's Bracketology competes with Autumn Johnson's projections, and Autumn Johnson's projections are endorsed on the NCAA WBB site. Said differently, I suspect Charlie WANTS to hear any reactions - so he can react accordingly to generate more clicks. More controversy, more interest, more clicks.
Third, at this point it appears that Charlie is primarily interested in speaking to where different teams reside on their respective seeding line. Placement in brackets, as evidenced by his last few updates, is not his focus. Once the First Reveal of the Top 16 teams is announced, he will immediately restructure his Bracketology to reflect what committee reveals. And he will then readjust again for the Second Reveal as well. This has been his MO since the beginning of Bracketology.
Regarding his last Bracketology, Charlie has been part of the ESPN crew presenting Selection Sunday since pre-COVID. How he assesses his final projection at the end of the show gives us a lot of insight as to what his limitations are. First and foremost, he evaluates his final Bracketology based on the number of teams he has correctly identified in the final 68 teams selected. Second, and to a much lesser extent, he also will also evaluate himself on whether he nailed the seeding lines. But
he does NOT assess his placement of teams in the respective brackets.
But my contention is that
he should. Bracket placement is where most of the controversy will come from.
I base this on the outcry from discontented head coaches over the past decade as reported in the media. It falls largely into two buckets. The first bucket of discontent is whether a team should have been placed in the top 16, thereby hosting and enjoying the home field advantage for the first two rounds, and putting them in the catbird seat to play in a Sweet Sixteen game. Fortunately, the advent of the "committee reveals" has greatly reduced the amount of this disgruntlement to the point where it is mostly from HCs and fans of the four teams assigned a 5 seed.
The bigger discontent is from the programs that get in a snit about their road to the Sweet Sixteen, Elite Eight and Final Four. Not just who is in their side of the regional bracket, but how far they must travel to play in the first and second weekends.
So placement in a bracket is extremely important to a large part of the WCBB community.
Given the strength of the Top 4-6 programs this year, coupled with having two conferences dominating the Top 16, I would contend it as important - if not more important - than a team's seeding line. Hence, I think Charlie should be factoring bracket placement into his biweekly updates. Failure to do so is a "miss", despite having six weeks to go until Selection Sunday.
I believe Charlie and the ESPN team read the Boneyard from time to time to get a pulse check on various teams as well as items of interest in WCBB. Hopefully he/they reads this post and adjusts accordingly. It will not only generate more controversy and more clicks, but also elevate his professional prestige. Certainly in my eyes.
Go Huskies!
