Saturday, March 10, 2007

2007 NCAA Tournament Projections, Late Saturday Night


After an active day, it's safe to post another batch of tournament projections. I will have one more projection posted tomorrow afternoon between 3 and 5 PM CDT. Click on the graphic for more details.

There are a couple of notable happenings at the top of the bracket. By making it to the Big Ten final, Wisconsin has the last #1 seed, according to my projection. The selection committee will have their decisions finalized before the end of Sunday's Big Ten championship game. UCLA's loss to Cal in the Pac-10 tournament cost them a #1 seed, unless Florida loses to Arkansas on Sunday. Also, Georgetown worked their way up to a #2 seed, by winning the Big East tournament in grand fashion.

At the bottom of the bracket, Florida A&M played their way into the Tuesday night opening round game by winning the MEAC tournament. I have them projected to play Central Connecticut State.

I love Drexel's team this year. They have 14 wins away from home. However, I'm afraid their bubble is about to burst. I want to be wrong on this. I have the final spot down to Old Dominion and conference mate Drexel. Old Dominion has two wins over Drexel, a higher conference finish, and a win at Georgetown. I think that will give them the tiniest of edges. If Arkansas and/or N.C. State win on Sunday, that makes two more bubble teams unhappy.

Last four in: Purdue, Illinois, Kansas State, Old Dominion
Last four out: Drexel, Missouri State, Air Force, Stanford

Cal Poly and Long Beach State are playing for the Big West title as I type. Auto-bids on the line Sunday include:

ACC: North Carolina vs. North Carolina State at Tampa
SEC: Florida vs. Arkansas at Atlanta
Southland: Texas A&M-Corpus Christi vs. Northwestern St. at Campbell Center, Houston
Big Ten: Ohio State vs. Wisconsin at Chicago
Big XII: Kansas vs. Texas at Oklahoma City

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

big ten and big 12 are not on the line auto-bids. they are probably comfortably in the tournament.


how close are you to the actual projections?

John said...

The Big XII and Big Ten are officially for automatic bids, but you're right about those teams being lead-pipe locks.

The last few years, I've averaged around 63-64 out of 65 teams from the actual bracket. Last year, I missed Air Force and Utah State. I'm a little less accurate when it comes to seeding, but those get really weird since the committee has rules to prevent rematches and games between conference teams before a regional final.

I'm just having fun with it..

Anonymous said...

yeah good point
no one knows the seedings. maybe you should apply to be one of the people in the rooms in Indiana next year.