College Basketball Bracketology: Closing Arguments

The final regular season games have arrived for the college basketball world. That means conference foes battling for at-large placement takes center stage. Where do Virginia and other teams stand in the bracketology?

My bracket is part of the bracket matrix under entry RWX and can be viewed here. It is my 7th year doing a bracket and you can see my ranking here. Last year I finished tied for 4th for the most accurate bracket! I’m sharing my bracketology here on TheSabre.com. Discuss it on the message board. This bracket release focuses on where teams stand as of 12 p.m. on Friday, march 1.

For Sabre fans,Virginia’s blowout loss to Duke was far from ideal. However, the NET didn’t crash too bad with UVA now at 49.

The predictive metrics are not great though with a BPI of 56 and a KenPom of 69 (Average of 62.5). That is the 2nd worst of my at-large teams in the field behind only Seton Hall (average of 66) and worse then the first 8 teams out except for Ole Miss. The resume/performance metrics remain solid with the KPI of 35 and the SOR of 34 (average of 34.5) – 12 of my at-large teams have worse averages than that and it is better than all of the first 8 teams out.

This translates to UVA being my last bye team, the last 10 seed, and the 5th team in the field. I still think if the Hoos beat Georgia Tech and avoid a bad loss (Q3+ or blowout) in the ACC Tournament, they will sneak in, although Dayton would be very much on the table. A win over GT and a win over a top 100 team in the ACC Tournament likely clinches a bid. Virginia’s first round ACC Tournament game seems likely to be against the 6 seed, which will likely either be Pittsburgh, Clemson, Syracuse, or Wake Forest. All of those teams are top 100 and 3 are top 50.

So this week we watch and hope for the other teams around and below the Hoos to lose. Here’s the full bracketology for this update.

• Last Four In: Seton Hall, New Mexico, Villanova, Utah
• First Four Out: Colorado, St. Johns, Providence, Iowa
• Next Four Out: Wake Forest, Ole Miss, Pittsburgh, Texas A&M

When you look at the rest of the bracket, Gonzaga really helped itself last week with 2 Q1 road wins. The Zags are now safely in no matter what happens in the WCC Tournament. That was the one big bubble movement of the weekend. Most of the other teams either lost games they were supposed to lose or won games they were supposed to win. Villanova did move into the field with its big road win over Providence and consequently Providence fell out. There are no big bubble games Monday. Texas does play at Baylor, but I think Texas is close to a lock although one more win would remove any doubts.

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.