16 March 2014

Last pass rankings

Pre madness.


1) Arizona18-4
2) Louisville7-5
3) Florida19-2
4) Virginia16-6
5) Kansas18-9
6) Villanova16-4
7) Duke14-7-1
8) Wichita St8-0
9) Creighton16-7
10) Michigan St15-8
11) Wisconsin19-6-1
12) Michigan17-7-1
13) UCLA12-6-2
14) Ohio St17-9
15) Oklahoma St11-12
16) Kentucky14-9-1
17) Iowa St17-7
18) VCU10-8
19) Pittsburgh11-9
20) Tennessee8-8-4
21) Gonzaga8-4-2
22) Syracuse17-3-2
23) Iowa9-11-1
24) San Diego St9-3-1
25) Cincinnati10-6
26) Connecticut10-7-1
27) North Carolina13-7-2
28) Oklahoma14-9
29) New Mexico8-6
30) Oregon9-7-2
31) Baylor12-11
32) SMU4-6-3
33) Louisiana Tech5-4-3
34) Stanford7-10-2
35) Saint Louis7-5-1
36) Harvard3-2-2
37) Texas13-10
38) Memphis6-8-1
39) Providence10-11
40) St Johns7-11-1
41) Utah7-10-1
42) BYU5-7-4
43) Florida St8-12-1
44) Xavier10-11-1
45) Kansas St11-10-2
46) Arkansas9-9-2
47) Arizona St11-9-2
48) Maryland8-14
49) Massachusetts10-7-1
50) George Washington11-7-1
51) Minnesota10-12-1
52) St Josephs10-7-2
53) Clemson5-10-2
54) Dayton9-6-4
55) Georgetown7-12-2
56) Nebraska11-11-1
57) West Virginia7-14-1
58) Colorado8-10-1
63) ND State2-3-3
66) New Mexico St1-3-6
69) Manhattan2-2-5
72) Tulsa2-6-6
75) Stephen Austin0-1-1
83) NC Central1-3-2
94) Mercer2-2-6
95) Delaware0-6-3
102) American
114) ULL
119) W Michigan
134) E Kentucky
159) Milwaukee
168) Cal Poly
169) Weber St
174) Albany
192) Wofford
201) Mt St Marys
227) Coast Carolina
234) Texas Southern

I have included all the auto-bids to date (which is the bolded names), and all the bubble teams (italics) plus a handful of teams that make my top 60 but won't get in (and probably shouldn't, this is the struck out names). The top 100 records will get updated fully in a day or so. I haven't re-run those entirely yet.

Colorado is the lowest rated team on my list that's likely to get in at large. California and Southern Miss have a handful of bracket experts parking them on the list, but neither is likely, and both are much lower rated.

Some thoughts on the auto-bids
The lesser conferences mostly went to form. 

Cal Poly was rated about 80 spots below the best team in that conference (Cal-Santa Barbara until a couple days ago), but despite being 11-19, they're not the worst team in the field. Indeed, they're not even that close. 

Milwaukee was 90 spots worse than Green Bay. Albany was around the same from Vermont. 

Providence probably would have gotten in anyway, but they may end up seeded a little more respectably now. 

Iowa St may be an attractive upset pick for me. They're likely to get a 3 or 4 seed (they could be as high as a 2). 3-6 is usually a bad spot to be seeded for winning a conference tournament (disclaimer: UConn won the title a few years ago that way). UCLA will be a much more attractive upset pick on those grounds actually.

Iowa St will play faster than almost any other team in the field (BYU? there's a few others who are close, UMass, Oklahoma, UNC). Virginia and Syracuse are the slowest pace teams, though there's a bunch of teams down in the sub 300 rated tempo area. Wisconsin is not one of them.

North Dakota St and Manhattan at first glance look appealing as upsets. So does Harvard.

I'm not sure why a #1 seed was in the works for any Big 10 team. Wisconsin, Michigan, and Michigan St aren't that far apart, Ohio St and Iowa also, and none looks that dominating. They would be the weakest #1 seed in quite a while. Going back maybe to Stanford in 2004. They were 29-1 coming into the tournament, and were upset in the second round. My take would be that if Virginia wins the ACC tournament, they should get it. It should really be Louisville, but it's hard to justify a #1 with their schedule being so poor.

Update: Should note NC State does not appear and SMU doesn't appear as a bubble team. This would be a rare instance where the committee undoubtedly goofed on the selection of teams a little.




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