College Basketball Bracketology: Do Teams Love Their Spot?

The college basketball season has reached mid-February and chances for teams to make a case for the NCAA Tournament field are dwindling fast. The latest bracketology projections provide context for where teams are late in the season as of 1 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 13.

My bracket is part of the bracket matrix under entry RWX. It is my 6th year doing a bracket and you can see my ranking here. I’m sharing my bracketology here on TheSabre.com. Discuss it on the message board.

For Sabre fans, Virginia had a good week last week picking up two quality wins (as of Monday, Q2 wins). With some other losses around the Hoos, I now have them as the top 3 seed. ESPN’s Joe Lunardi made a comment over the weekend that UVA could win out and not end up on the 2 line. That could be right, but I think it is too bombastic of a statement because he makes a lot of assumptions about other teams. UCLA’s resume is not that different than Virginia and the Bruins are considered a solid 2 seed by many. If they were to drop a couple of games, they would move below UVA.

Right now I have also Baylor and Arizona ahead of Virginia but if the Bears stumble a couple of times, the win over them on a neutral court could give the Hoos the edge. The Wildcats have a Q3 loss which UVA does not, so if they stumble UVA could move ahead there too. If you are pulling for UVA to get a 2 seed, pull against Baylor (but not too much since that is Virginia’s best win), UCLA, Arizona, Tennessee, Gonzaga, Kansas State, and Xavier among others.

This week, the Cavaliers have an anchor game at Louisville which will be Q4. Louisville has a NET of 331, which is just awful. Kenpom predicts a 16-point win. UVA probably needs to win this one by 20+ to avoid a negative impact on its NET ranking. A loss could drop Virginia all the way to a 5 seed. It could be that bad. The weekend game is a home against Notre Dame, who has a NET of 201 (again as of Monday) so another Q4 game with Kenpom also predicting a 16-point win. Winning both this week will likely have little positive impact for the Hoos unless they win both by 30-40 points. Close wins will likely hurt too, although maybe just to knock UVA down to a mid or lower 3 seed. Two losses would likely knock Virginia down 3 to 4 seed lines all at once.

So this is actually a critical week for UVA to be sharp. At the end of the day, just win, but subpar efforts could hurt the metrics even with wins, so go out and take care of business. I expect the Hoos will.

Here is the full bracketology breakdown.

RaleighHOO's Bracketology 2023

• Last Four In: Texas A&M, USC, UNC, New Mexico
• First Four Out: Oregon, Kentucky, Wisconsin, Arizona St.
• Next Four Out: Clemson, Seton Hall, Michigan, Virginia Tech
• Comments: Lots of bubble movement today with Mississippi St., Memphis, and Texas A&M moving in and Oregon, Kentucky, and Wisconsin moving out.

Notes on my selection process:

1. I don’t create matchups. My goal is to match the NCAA S Curve and select the right teams. Honestly the bracketing procedures are too tedious.
2. Conference champions (* teams) in the pre-conference tournament brackets are picked by the team with the highest conference winning % at time of bracket creation. If there is a tie, the team with the highest NET is picked.
3. Brackets will be updated at least on Monday and Friday. As we get closer to the end of the season and during conference tournament weeks, it will be updated every day.