Bauertology: 2/14/25

Happy Valentine’s Day, y’all! My gift of love to you is a new Bauertology bracket. About damn time—only been a week and a half since the last one!

Though, for me, tomorrow is much more of a holiday than today. (Save your bachelor jokes.) The reason is that tomorrow brings with it the annual top 16 bracket preview show, in which we get our first glimpse at what the selection committee is thinking and feeling about the teams currently situated at the top of the bracket.

Consider this the “midterm” for bracketologists; has your evaluation process through the first three-quarters of the season been in tune with what the committee is considering? Or do you need to make tweaks down the line before the final exam on Selection Sunday?

It’s also just a chance to see the fruits of our labor come to, well, fruition. Nothing beats the rush on Selection Sunday, watching the bracket slowly unfurl as I keep tabs on how accurately my final prediction compares. This is a little dose of that same adrenaline a month ahead of time, meant to sate until the big day arrives.

With all the top teams done playing for the week, I’m locking in my prediction for the top 16 a full day before the reveal. This is what I’m rolling with:

As it stands, I’m feeling very confident in the order of the teams I have ranked 1 through 10. There could be a bit of jostling here and there, but I’d be quite surprised if any of those teams are more than two spots away from their correct true seed. It’s the 11 to 16 range where I think things get funky. I could realistically see any of those six teams in any order (well, almost—11th would be a bit high for St. John’s, and 16th would be pretty disrespectful to Texas Tech). The order of those six should give good insight into which factors—metrics, non-conference scheduling, résumé vs. efficiency, etc.—that this year’s committee values over others.

In addition to the top 16, the committee chair typically reveals three to four other teams that were just on the outside; you can see my guess for those four listed above. There are a few others that I could realistically see getting a nod as well. I’m very curious to see where Memphis lands, with the Tigers’ gap between their titanium résumé metrics and bubble-worthy efficiency metrics seemingly growing larger every day. UCLA is another to keep an eye on, particularly if the Bruins win at Indiana on Friday night. And don’t be completely shocked if UConn is named as one of the “honorable mentions”; though the Huskies’ metric profile would seem to preclude them from serious consideration, they’re also lifting a hefty 4-0 record against Quad 1A opponents, which could earn them some serious brownie points.

My top 16 prediction, as you’d guess, goes on to shape the rest of my full 68-team bracket, where I simply must clear the air about “hand-picked” matchups that the selection committee clearly premeditates in the name of TV ratings. I mean, how else can you explain Marquette being paired with VCU in the Shaka Smart Bowl, or Arizona facing off against Grand Canyon in an all-AZ battle, or Memphis possibly squaring up with Iowa State in the second round for a long-awaited Tyrese Hunter homecoming? There’s no way you can justify Arkansas and Coach Cal being in the same pod as Cal’s former home of Kentucky, with the winner of that potential game going to the Sweet Sixteen! Can’t be done!

…Except, you can. There is no foul play here. As hard as it may be to believe, every single one of those matchups fell naturally into place whilst bracketing the field, as a result of the order of the true seed list. True story! And the selection committee is given specific instruction that the true seed list shall remain unchanged when building the bracket, meaning they aren’t manually moving teams up and down the ranks to get the matchups they desire.

OK, then how do you explain Calmageddon happening in the early rounds of the NCAA Tournament? Simple. When we get to the 11 seed line, where Arkansas lies, all of the 3 and 6 seeds in those pods have already been placed, based on location—regional sites for the 3s, subregional sites for the 6s. Per the selection committee’s guidelines, First Four teams get first dibs on their respective seed lines, in order to help limit travel distance from Dayton. Also per the selection committee’s guidelines, the fourth-to-last (SMU) and third-to-last (Arkansas) at-large teams should pair up when possible, as should the second-to-last (BYU) and last (Wake Forest) at-large teams. This means that BYU and Wake Forest head with each other to the East Region’s Denver subregional, as it is the only option of the four possible choices where BYU would never have to potentially play a game on Sunday.

As a consequence of BYU and Wake taking a Thursday/Saturday pod, SMU and Arkansas must take a Friday/Sunday pod. The reason? One First Four game between the final four at-larges is always played on Tuesday, and the other is always played on Wednesday. If all four of these teams were in Thursday/Saturday pods, then someone would have to play a game two days in a row, which isn’t allowed. So SMU/Arkansas would then initially go to the West’s Milwaukee pod, in order to avoid the potential Arkansas-Kentucky second-round rematch. But once we get to placing the other 11 seeds, we run into a problem. Vanderbilt cannot possibly go into either of the two remaining options, as the South’s Providence pod would create a first-round conference rematch against Missouri (illegal), and the Midwest’s Indianapolis pod would create a potential second-round conference rematch against Kentucky, who Vanderbilt will have played twice by the tournament (illegal). And since BYU ain’t budging from its position, the only thing we can do is slot Vandy into the only pod that’ll fit them—Milwaukee in the West—and move SMU/Arkansas to the remaining Friday/Saturday pod—Cleveland in the Midwest—where a potential Arkansas-Kentucky second-round matchup is legal, since the two will have only met once prior to the tournament. (The committee could technically move Vanderbilt or one of the First Four matchups down to a 12 off their true seed line, but this is typically considered a last-resort move, and it would be preferred to do this same-seed-line shuffling instead.)

And that’s how you end with such a juicy matchup with no outside interference of any kind. Hard to believe, I know. But it’s the plain ol’ truth. And you just know that the selection committee would have the same smug smile of satisfaction seeing something like that play out before their very eyes, as I did when building this bracket.

OK, lengthy introduction over! Let’s get to the full 68-team projection for Friday, Feb. 14.

As a reminder, all automatic bids are chosen by which team in each conference ranks highest in my résumé metric BRCT as of today—a decision that has apparently become a point of contention for some. So I’ll again explain why I’m doing it this way: 1) Until the NCAA comes to me and says that they want to use BRCT as an official metric for their team sheets, it doesn’t serve any useful purpose right now other than being a talking point (and maybe helping me decide which teams to include and exclude from my Bubble Watches). This is a way to put it to some sort of practical, actual use in the meantime. 2) It takes a really long time to put together a seed list, build a bracket, and then put together the graphics you see below. Like, a really long time. Like, a suspicious amount of time for someone who also has a full-time job unrelated to bracketology. Because BRCT rankings are based on an entire season of work instead of the more common auto-bid selection method of conference standings, which can change at the drop of a hat due to a smaller sample size, drastic changes are less likely to occur, allowing me to keep more of the same teams I already had in the field, saving me precious minutes on comparing résumés, building graphics, and all that jazz. And 3) Because BRCT is based on a full season of work rather than just what you’ve done in conference play, it may be more accurate at determining who the “best” overall team in each conference is—the one that is most likely to end up with the automatic bid as a result of winning their conference tournament. TBD on that one, but it might be fun to look back and compare.

So now that I’ve explained this in full, I will not be addressing any more complaints about your team being out despite them leading the conference standings. If you’re that mad that I’m using a different auto-bid method than what is commonplace, I highly suggest that, instead of leaving an angry comment, you close the browser window and go for a hike around the neighborhood. Much healthier alternative.

OK, OK—get to the damn bracket already! Jeez. I talk too much. Here’s the full bracket and seed list for Valentine’s Day 2025. Have at thee!