The countdown is on, people.
We are now less than a month away from the start of conference tournament play, which kicks off with the ASUN on March 4. Hope that sends a shiver down your spine!
Yes, the march of time is unbeaten, and March Madness will arrive much sooner than you expect. But bracketology is a good way to slow things down and take it as it comes day-by-day. That’s a good thing, because we bracketologists are all still desperately hoping that some of the huge questions surrounding this year’s field will be answered over the next month and a half.
I already went into depth on the enigma that Ole Miss is in the last update, and they remain that way with a résumé unlike any team that has ever come before—extremely high-end results metrics to the tune of an 18-4 record, with extremely low-end predictive metrics and no wins on the team sheet that really catch your eye, wrapped together in one of the worst non-conference strength of schedule numbers in all of Division I. They slot into Dayton into today’s projection; perhaps the committee’s way of saying, “Well, the performance numbers say you belong here… now prove it.”
Texas is another interesting case. The Longhorns were careening toward the bubble on the back of back-to-back losses to BYU and Houston; not terrible losses at all, but huge missed opportunities to shore up some of the more questionable pieces of their team sheet. Then they won by 11 in Fort Worth on Saturday, and all of a sudden, their profile looks much more comparable to that of the Texas Techs, Oklahomas, and TCUs I had on the 5-7 lines than of a bubble team. I know I talked all about “transformative victories” last write-up… but does a single win over TCU really jump you up about four seed lines? Apparently the answer is yes, in the Longhorns’ case… or so I think.
Maybe the area I’m most concerned with is actually right near the top of the bracket: the 2-seeds. I feel pretty comfortable saying North Carolina is still the last 1-seed with their win over Duke keeping their grasp on that, and that Wisconsin is down to the top 3-seed following close losses to Nebraska and Purdue, but the order for the four teams in between? Anyone’s guess.
Just look at the individual profiles of this group. Tennessee has the full plate of metrics reminiscent of a 1-seed and a top-tier SOS to boot; the Volunteers are also just 4-4 in Quad 1 and have head-to-head losses to other top teams (Purdue, Kansas). Arizona’s not far behind metrically, and they’ve got a superior 6-3 Q1 output and another top-of-the-line schedule; the Wildcats also have highly questionable losses to Stanford and Oregon State in their back pocket. Marquette meets the schedule difficulty, has a head-to-head win over Kansas, and possesses three Quad 1 road wins; the Golden Eagles’ also have only one metric in the top 10 and a record of just 2-2 in Quad 1A. Kansas owns victories over the best in the business (Houston, UConn, Tennessee); the Jayhawks also have predictive numbers historically low for a 1-seed contender and are still missing a true road win in Q1 this late into the season.
You see how it becomes a mess very quickly? I’ve ultimately settled on the order written above (Tennessee, then Arizona, then Marquette, then Kansas), but you could realistically shuffle them into any sequence and I’d buy it.
That’s why I’m not exactly hoping that these days of February and March fly by. Don’t get me wrong, I’m pumped that the madness is soon to be on the doorstep. But giving life some time to sort out these questions proper will go a long way.
In the meantime, enjoy the Bauertology projection for Monday, Feb. 5—possibly the only one this week since I’ve got an extremely busy work schedule ahead of me, but we’ll see if I can squeeze one more bracket out before the week is up. (And keep your head on a swivel for the days following next Sunday’s Super Bowl… something bubbly is a-brewing.)
