📄 2043 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

The regular season has come to a close and we are entering the cauldron of conference tournament season. It’s a stressful time to be a CBGM owner with a team on the bubble. It’s even harder to predict what will happen. We do know there will be lots of surprises this week, but we don’t know where they’re coming from.

This is our second bracketology of the season, and it’s a good time to take a snapshot of what the tournament might look like if all the regular season champions advanced to the dance. We know this won’t happen and chaos will render these predictions moot. Let’s take a look at some teams facing crucial weeks if they want to see themselves appear in the bracket on Selection Sunday.

For starters, this is a tough, tough field to predict. All of the last eight teams I have out – Colorado, Toledo, TCU, Xavier, Texas, Santa Clara, LIU and UCF are facing make-or-break matchups. Stumble early, and they could be finished. Even doing exactly what they are expected to do might not be enough. Making serious runs to the semis and possibly finals of their tournaments is the only way to get themselves on the right side of the bubble. Considering the game’s Bubble Watch has six of those eight teams out right now, the time to be peaking is this week, or it’s NIT here we come.

These are also strange times in CBGM, as the Big East Conference, flush with human owners and traditional powers like UConn and Villanova, boasts only ONE team – Butler – with a bulletproof NCAA resume. Seton Hall and Creighton are both in, according to me. The game might see it otherwise.

The Atlantic 10 has been good for 3-6 teams every year, but barring an upset, VCU and La Salle will be the only representatives.

Even the super-conferences should be worried. The ACC, Big Ten, Big 12 and SEC feature the best of the best, yes, but also lots of teams hovering perilously close to the bubble or beyond it completely.

Finally, we have to take note of some mid- and low-major programs with at-large resumes. Should these teams fail to win their conference tournaments, yet still get into the dance, that will shrink the bubble even further. Root hard for these programs to win out: Portland State (37 NET, Big Sky), Cal Poly (25 NET, Big West), Middle Tennessee (35 NET, Conference USA), Akron (29 NET, MAC), Boston University (40 NET, Patriot League), Alabama A&M (26 NET, SWAC), St. Thomas (54 NET, Summit).

The Northeast Conference is also complicated, with FDU and LIU both with NET rankings in the 40s. The Mountain West has two sure things in San Diego State and Utah State. Any other team winning will muddy the waters further. Same in the A-10 with VCU and La Salle, and in the Missouri Valley with Indiana State and Murray State.

It will be interesting to follow. Good luck everyone!

IN GAME DATE: Mar 5th