Finally, some movement at the top! It was getting kinda stale there for a while.
When you do bracketology as often as I do—that is, twice a week—it’s always fun to look back at old, outdated projections and see just how much a team has moved up or down the seed list based on the results of the games played in between. Just looking back a month ago, I had Seton Hall as a 7 seed, ahead of both Tennessee and St. John’s on the 8 line. Since then, the Volunteers and Red Storm have put together more respectable résumés, rising to the 5 and 6 lines for me, respectively, while the Pirates… have not, and are now my eighth team out of the field. A lot can change in 30 days!
But changes have honestly been few and far between this season, a result of the top of the bracket’s seeming inability to lose. I’ve already wrote about it once this season, how the teams at the tippy-top are making it past just about every roadblock with aplomb; only now are we seeing these powerhouses stumble, and it’s mostly a result of just playing other powerhouses. The top of the sport is damn good this year, y’all!
That’s all fine and dandy… though it does make bracketology a tad bit boring. Every single projection I pumped out from Jan. 19 to Feb. 6—that’s six brackets in a row—had the exact same top four: Arizona, Duke, Michigan, UConn, in that order. Wears on your psyche after a while! Then things changed on Monday, as Duke’s loss in the Dean Dome two days prior allowed the Wolverines to sneak past the Blue Devils up to #2 overall. But there was no way that they could get past unbeaten Arizona; all arguments would immediately be null and void by the Wildcats having a goose egg in the loss column.
Then Monday night happened. Arizona played an excellent game at Kansas, one that the Wildcats even led by as many as 11, but the magic of Phog Allen Fieldhouse was too much to withstand, and Zona finally fell for the first time this season. And suddenly, the door for Michigan to move up to #1 became ajar. But let’s hold on a second—a single defeat on the road to a team presently on my 2-seed line surely isn’t enough to lose your hold on the #1 overall seed, right? Right?
That’s what I assumed. Then I looked at the data. Michigan, who had been juggling the #1 spot in NET with Arizona and Duke for a couple weeks, now has a firm grip on it. They’re also #1 in KenPom. #1 in T-Rank. #1 in KPI. #1 in WAB. The only metric where Arizona still ranks ahead of Michigan is SOR. The Wolverines also have one more win in Quad 1, and one more win in Quad 2—not to mention, their strength of schedule numbers (both overall and non-conference) are a bit stronger.
I understand that a lot of other bracketologists are going to keep Arizona on top. And that’s completely fine; a team shouldn’t be punished too badly for losing its first game of the season, especially not in a madhouse like the Phog when Michigan’s lone loss came at home, and the Wildcats do indeed possess a true road win over another 1 seed (UConn). And while I understand that the selection committee does like to single out those kinds of results from time to time, I’ve also come to understand that looking at bracketology with a big-picture lens is a very helpful—and very accurate—way to assess things. Michigan is ahead in NET and five of the six metrics, has two additional wins in the top two quadrants, and has played a tougher schedule. For me, that’s case closed.
So enjoy your time at the top, Wolverines! But don’t get too cozy—not unless you can win in West Lafayette and then beat Duke in DC next week. If you get through both, well, I don’t think there’s going to be much debate for who’s #1 overall at that point.
On to the full bracket! Like always, my automatic bids are based on which team in each conference scores highest in my résumé metric BRCT—and with California Baptist passing up Utah Valley naturally there, I don’t even have to worry about making an exception for the WAC… at least for now.
Also, since I’ve started up the weekly Bubble Watch series as of Wednesday, I’m probably going to keep these Bauertology writeups a bit on the shorter side going forward, if only to spare my sanity. Lord knows I love writing about college basketball, but I do have a life outside of it too! See ya on Monday for the next update!
