2040 Dance Partners, Building a Better Bracket w/ EC Hood: Part 1 Feb 6th

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

A bracketology presentation by EC Hood

The first bracketology of the season is here! It’s always interesting to start placing teams on seed lines, even if this early in the season everyone is pretty bunched up. There really isn’t much of a difference between the four seeds and the sevens, and even some eights have very solid resumes. A strong win or bad loss in the next sim could alter the order here significantly, but for now this is the best we can do with the information we have.

Some teams worth noting as we look at our first bracket:

UCLA has shot out of the gate with a 21-2 record. Not bad for an AI coach! The Bruins are seeded 1st in the South Region. The ingredients for a special season are simmering.

Colorado is extra special this year at 23-1 and 1^st in the NET. Minnesota (21-1) and North Carolina (21-3) round out the No. 1 seeds.

The mid majors are strong, as usual, starting with Middle Tennessee and their 19-4 record (14 NET). Rhode Island (19-3, 21 NET) joins them as a 5 seed right now, but like we said earlier, there’s not much difference between their spots and an 8 or 9 seed should either slip up in the next few sims.

Because we chose the team with the best conference record as the automatic qualifier, there are a couple of leagues that probably are over-represented here and are worth watching from a bubble standpoint. The MEAC should be a one-bid league, and that one big should be Coppin State. But North Carolina Central is off to an 8-0 start in league play. Coppin State is a 7 seed here based on its 20 NET ranking. Elsewhere, Coastal Carolina surprisingly leads the Sun Belt with a 10-0 record but are just 14-7 overall and 88 in the NET. Sun Belt stalwarts Old Dominion, Troy and Georgia Southern are all in as at large teams. We also must note that Murray State is an at-large team in this bracket as Bradley leads the Missouri Valley. Bubble teams should take note of these situations going forward. They definitely need the MEAC and MVC to be one-bid leagues, and for the Sun Belt to cap it at three.

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: Feb 6th