๐Ÿ“„ 2039 Dance Partners, Building a Better Bracket w/ EC Hood: Part 4 Mar 10th

 ๐Ÿ“„ 2039 Dance Partners, Building a Better Bracket w/ EC Hood: Part 4 Mar 10th

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

Itโ€™s our final bracketology of the season, just a couple of sims before Selection Sunday, and things are starting to come into focus. While there have been some interesting results this week, the bracket weโ€™ve assembled doesnโ€™t look too much different than the gameโ€™s Bubble Watch in terms of who is in and who is out. The seeds will probably be very different.

The top three teams this year have been Colorado, North Carolina and Texas from the get-go. The fourth No. 1 seed has been fuzzy. Butler has a case as the No. 4 team in the NET rankings, but here we are going with Gonzaga. At 31-3, WCC champions and owners of several wins against top programs, the Zags are the top seed in the West Region.

Michigan and Minnesota both earn No. 2 seeds here but the loser of their Big Ten title game could drop to a 3 if Wichita State takes the AAC. Butler and Tyson Ferrara loom in the West as the No. 2, with Notre Dame the final 2 seed, in the South.

Our last four teams in are Florida (coming off a win over SEC top seed Alabama), Marquette (barely hanging on after a loss to 11 seed Providence in the Big East), Arizona State (salvaging what had been a disappointing season so far by their standards with a trip to the Pac-12 semis and knocking off fellow bubble team Utah), and Incarnate Word (led the Southland all year before falling to Nicholls State, weโ€™ll give them a chance to win their way into the field in a play-in game). Just missing the cut are Auburn, Kansas, Utah and Virginia Tech.

There are still some interesting games to watch in the coming days.

Florida State could improve their standing as a 5 seed with a win over Notre Dame in the ACC semis.

Saint Louis could knock off VCU in the A-10 title game and push a team off the bubble. VCU is not a lock to make it as an at-large team in the game, though they would probably be safe in our alt-world after knocking off Rhode Island.

Itโ€™s worth noting that Baylor is still alive in the Big 12. The Bears could further disrupt the bracket with wins over Kansas State and Texas/Oklahoma State in the final. They certainly have the talent on their roster to do so.

Itโ€™s difficult to imagine USC knocking off both Stanford and Colorado, but we should at least note they are still alive in the Pac-12 as a team on the outside looking in to the tournament.

Letโ€™s dance!

MULTIPLE-BID CONFERENCES:

8 โ€“ ACC

6 โ€“ Big East, SEC

4 โ€“ Big Ten, Mountain West, Pac-12

3 โ€“ American, Sun Belt, West Coast

2 โ€“ Atlantic-10, Southland

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 hasnโ€™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. Iโ€™m not quite the NCAA committee โ€“ Iโ€™m not going to examine every injury to determine if a result was legit or not and I probably wonโ€™t have time to drill down into every team sheet. In the end, this is just for fun.

IN GAME DATE: Mar 10th



EC Hood

EC Hood recently joined CBGM after many years playing DDSCB solo and running alt-history postseason tournaments using spreadsheets and Tournament Maker. When not dreaming of an editable bracket in the game and/or annoying Gary Gorski with the request, EC is the CBGM head coach of Rhode Island. For awhile in the real world, he was a stats/PR guy at several NCAA Division I college athletic departments.

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