📄 2037 Dance Partners, Building a Better Bracket w/ EC Hood: Part 2 Mar 5th

Dance Partners, Building a Better Bracket. A bracketology presentation by EC Hood

It may be mid July in reality, but in our virtual CBGM world, it’s the best week of the year – conference tournament season leading into Selection Sunday!

There are lots of strong mid-major programs this season, and the bracket right now has the play-in at-large games on the 13 seed line – almost unprecedented. But that’s what happens when teams like Buffalo, Georgia Southern, Princeton, Old Dominion, Coppin State, Middle Tennessee and Hawaii have such solid resumes. If any of the above teams lose in their league tournament, they are still on track to be in the field. You know what this means – bubbles will burst in the high-major conferences with each loss. Such is life in CBGM, when the AI can’t keep up with savvy human owners at the mid-major level. So I expect numerous at-large bids for mid-major schools, plus automatic bids that will make folks cry – most likely from our last four in right now in Houston, Arizona State, Georgetown and La Salle.

LSU has had a stupendous year, but finally lost. It didn’t matter for our seeding, as the Tigers snag the No. 1 seed in the South. Wichita State and UConn are locks for two of the 1 seeds, and Colorado has a strong hold on the fourth barring an early exit in the Pac 12. Notre Dame and Minnesota are lurking should they win out in their respective conference championships.

There are still a TON of things that could change, and we will try to revisit this bracket at least once more before the real ones are revealed. Enjoy!

The Rules:

1. No two teams from the same conference will play each other before the Elite 8 unless impossible to avoid.
2. No at-large teams will be seeded below the 12 line unless impossible to avoid. The play-in at-large teams will always be the last four at-large teams that made it.
3. Note: Conference champion bid predictions are determined by the team with the best in-conference record, and higher NET ranking if tied, at the time of the update if the league title game hasn’t been played yet.
4. This is not a prediction of what the actual bracket will end up being in the game. It is a prediction of what the bracket would be if this season occurred in real life right now and was picked by the NCAA committee.
5. I’m not quite the NCAA committee – I’m not going to examine every injury to determine if a result was legit or not and I probably won’t have time to drill down into every team sheet. In the end, this is just for fun.

IN GAME DATE: Mar 5th