Bracketology

[SeanMayTriedToEatMe]

Current 8/9s on Lunardi, with kenpom rankings:

9 Wichita State
22 Oklahoma State
33 Miami
34 Northwestern
37 Dayton
41 Arkansas
44 Virginia Tech
49 VCU

Suffice to say, a 1 seed is getting fucked with Wichita State and it will definitely be Duke if Duke is a 1 seed. Duke vs. Wichita State in South Carolina would have Duke as a 1-3 point favorite.

 

[Inveigle]

What do ya know, the one seeds weren't "locked in" after all :roll:

This season is more unpredictable at the top than years past. And the brackets experts depend so heavily on regular season resumes that they totally forget about tourney hot teams right now. So when they start crunching numbers and use those accumulated before Christmas or even the first half of conference, as a part of an evaluation, take it with a lot of skepticism.

 

[SeanMayTriedToEatMe]

Here is my annual list of the significantly overseeded and underseeded teams when comparing Lunardi's projected seeds to kenpom rankings.

Note: To insult your intelligence, generally we want overseeded teams and do not want underseeded teams in Duke's region. There are plenty of exceptions, however, such as when an underseeded team is paired in the 2nd round with a strong team that Duke would otherwise expect to meet in the 3rd round, or when Duke would be expected to match up better with an underseeded team than the appropriately seeded alternatives.

Overseeded (listed by seed line with kenpom ranking in parentheses; egregious cases are bolded)

1: Kansas (10)
2: Arizona (21), Oregon (16), Duke (12)
3: Florida St. (19), UCLA (18)
4: Butler (26), Notre Dame (25)
5: None
6: Minnesota (35)
7: Maryland (45)
8: Virginia Tech (44)
9: VCU (49)
10: Providence (56), Seton Hall (53)
11: None
12: UT Arlington (76)
13: Akron (97)

Underseeded

1: N/A
2: None
3: Louisville (6)
4: West Virginia (4)
5: Virginia (7), Florida (8)
6: St. Mary's (13)
7: None
8: Oklahoma St. (22)
9: Wichita St. (9)
10: None
11: Marquette (28), Kansas St. (29), Wake Forest (30)
12: None
13: None

Starting at the 14 line, we get all weak conference automatic qualifiers, who are all over the place.

 

[StopThePumpFakesShav]

Seth Davis thinks the last 1 seed is Duke (if they win tonight) or the Pac 12 champ "reading between the lines" based on some interview with the selection chair. I kind of don't want to be a 1 and deal with all the fallout honestly...

My preference is Arizona as the South 1 with Duke as the 2. So what will happen is Arizona will win and UNC will get that 2 (if they are left off the one line). Arizona is not great; that's the nightmare scenario.

Seems like the only thing we know is that KU is the Midwest 1, Nova is the East 1 and Gonzaga is the West 1. I still think UNC gets the 1 in the South with UK as the 2 despite what Seth thinks.

Oh yeah and if we're in the same bracket as UNC because we're 4 and 5 on the S Curve I'll kill self.

 

[DrKlahn]

Since a lot of people seem worried about Duke and UNC being in the same region, here is what the bracketing principles and procedures document (yes, that exists) says:

Each of the first four teams selected from a
conference shall be placed in different
regions if they are seeded on the first four
lines.

In the ACC, that will almost certainly mean that UNC, Duke, Louisville and FSU will be in separate regions. Notre Dame with a win might cause one of the brackets to have two ACC teams in the top-4 seeds, but that would be something like 2) Duke 4) Notre Dame. It would not be something like 1) UNC 2) Duke.

 

[StopThePumpFakesShav]

Ah didn't realize that was one of the principles. Cool.

 

[deepdarkblue]

Is all the Duke as a possible one seed noise even real, or is it just sports media people stirring shit up? Hard to believe we would have basically hurdled over all the 2's, 3's, and half the 4's in the span of a week or less.

I'd be delighted with a 2 seed, hopefully in New York.

 

[DrKlahn]

I feel like it was a PR stunt to drive up interest in this and the Pac 12 game.

 

[aiw]

Lunardi, complaining about Duke's 8 losses, has 7-loss UNC as a 1 seed still.

 

[DrKlahn]

A Loss Too Far

 

[DrKlahn]

I think we are looking at a group that looks like this:

SOUTH (Memphis)
1. Duke/UNC
2. Kentucky
3. Florida State
4. UCLA

And a group that looks like this:

EAST (MSG)
1. Villanova
2. Duke/UNC
3. Baylor
4. Florida

Take your pick.

 

[Inveigle]

What a difference a Tournament Championship makes after a week of winning four games in a row. Duke was looking at a solid four seed until this weekend.

 

[TS9]

2 in the east is fine

 

[DurhamSon]

I think there is now a non-zero chance where Duke and UNC both get #1s and Gonzaga moved to the two.

 

[SeanMayTriedToEatMe]

Lunardi has Duke as Kansas's 2 in Kansas City.

I don't disagree with this. I don't think they're going to punish the overall #1 seed (Villanova) with the biggest variable of the tournament (Duke). They aren't bound by the geography rules. They're not really bound by any of their own rules. They can do whatever they want. The selection committee is basically Trump without judges.

If the committee wants TV ratings, which really should drive this whole thing, they would try to give us Kentucky/Duke and UNC/Kansas. The best early round game they can give us is 1 Kansas/9 Wichita State in Tulsa.

 

[DurhamSon]

"Duke wasn't better than Arizona before last week when they lost 3 out of 4. Duke wasn't better than UNC before Berry sat with 4 fouls"

Greenberg is still absolutely obsessed with that 4th Berry foul, now bringing it up at WTF moments, as if it has anything to do with our seeding.

 

[DrKlahn]

There are 3 scenarios for Duke that are not all that hard to justify. Lunardi has managed to pass them all up and propose a fourth.

 

[rhfarmer]

Greenberg cried on national TV the day they beat Duke in Blacksburg.

#neverforget

 

[SeanMayTriedToEatMe]

Duke's best performances this season, in chronological order:

10 Kansas without Tatum or Giles, lost by 2 - New York (MSG)
9 Florida without Giles, won by 10 - New York (MSG)
249 UNLV, won by 49 - Las Vegas
82 Georgia Tech, won by 53 - Home
25 Notre Dame, won by 10 - Away
3 North Carolina, won by 8 - Home
7 Virginia, won by 10 - Away
6 Louisville, won by 4 - New York (Barclays)
3 North Carolina, won by 10 - New York (Barclays)
25 Notre Dame, won by 6 - New York (Barclays)

5 of the top 10 performances were in New York. Tatum, who lives for the spotlight, was either injured or spectacular in all of the New York games.

0 were in Kansas City. 0 were in Memphis.

 

[deepdarkblue]

Sports media people are continuing to bait the masses with "Duke has a good case for a 1 seed". The responses bear a striking similarity to the sorts of things you would hear at a Trump rally. They've got every non-Duke fanbase worked up into a snarling, hate filled frenzy.
If only Grayson had done something awful last night, that would have sealed the deal. Every Duke player and staff member would need to be assigned a full security complement, their families would need to be whisked away to undisclosed safe houses. Duke University would be shut down due to bomb threats and/or mobs of angry rioters descending on the campus.