Ramblings from the Ultimate Sports Sentimentalist

With college football season over and NFL playoffs winding down, it’s time to start dreaming about March.  Which means it’s also time for me to publish my first edition of Brad-ketology for the 2012 season (my personal NCAA/NIT bracket projections).  Brad-ketology is a little different than other NCAA tourney predictors in that it is much more expansive, as it also includes the NIT field and bubble.  It is also one of the columns used in the nationally-recognized bracket project  which seeds NCAA teams by taking an average of the most prominent bracket projections in the country.  Last season, my final bracket ranked as the  10th most accurate in entire country out of 89 recognized bracketologists.  Compare that to the well-known Joe Lunardi from ESPN whose final projection ended up ranking 52nd in the same poll.

The teams below are displayed below on an S-curve, so they are ranked from left to right within each seeding line.  The italicized teams are ones predicted to win their conference tourney and gain an automatic bid to the dance.  For the conferences who currently have NCAA tourney teams, it is assumed that one of those teams will win their conference tourney.  If not, then a stolen bid would result, and the number of at-large bids would drop.

Also, just to clarify, my bracket projection is intended to project the NCAA Tournament field if it was chosen today.  Unlike some bracketologists, I am not trying to predict how each team will finish the season and then seed the teams based on that.  There is one slight exception to this rule, however, and that is that I have always chosen to award the projected automatic bid for each conference to my projected best team in that conference, and not the team who is currently leading the conference standings.  For example, many bracket projections currently have Marshall in the NCAA Tournament with an automatic bid because they are currently leading Conference USA.  However, Memphis is currently my highest seeded team from C-USA so I am awarding the auto bid to them instead.  Given how unbalanced conference schedules are, it just seems like common sense to project that the best team in a conference will win the league championship, not the squad currently in first place.

Brad-ketology columns will be published at least twice a week (typically on Mondays and Fridays) and more often than that when it gets closer to tourney time.  Please feel free to comment or debate.

NCAA Tourney Field:

1-seeds: Syracuse, Kentucky, Baylor, Duke

2-seeds: Ohio State, Missouri, North Carolina, Kansas

3-seeds: Michigan State, Georgetown, UNLV, Illinois

4-seeds: UConn, Indiana, Marquette, Michigan

5-seeds: Virginia, Vanderbilt, Creighton, Seton Hall

6-seeds: Florida, Gonzaga, Kansas State, San Diego State

7-seeds: Saint Mary’s, Alabama, West Virginia, Murray State

8-seeds: Wisconsin, Louisville, Purdue, Mississippi State

9-seeds: Wichita State, Temple, California, Harvard

10-seeds: Stanford, Cincinnati, Florida State, Xavier

11-seeds: Memphis, Northwestern, Dayton, Minnesota

12-seeds: New Mexico, Brigham Young, Southern Miss, Iowa State, NC State, Saint Louis

13-seeds: Oral Roberts, Long Beach State, Davidson, Iona

14-seeds: Middle Tennessee, Cleveland State, Nevada, Belmont

15-seeds: VCU, Weber State, Akron, Bucknell

16-seeds: Norfolk State, Wagner, UNC-Asheville, UT-Arlington, Mississippi Valley State, Stony Brook

• Note: The top three 16 seeds projected above would be the most talented 16 seeds ever.  Norfolk and Wagner both possess top 80 RPIS (typically unheard of for any seed lower than a 14), and all three have had solid results this season against good NCAA tourney teams.  This really could be the year a 16 beats a 1!
  

NIT Tourney Field:

1-seeds: Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado State, Marshall

• Note: Right now, the Big 12 looks to be this year’s bubble conference.

2-seeds: Central Florida, Arkansas, Notre Dame, Oregon

3-seeds: Arizona, Northern Iowa, Virginia Tech, St. Joe’s

4-seeds: LSU, La Salle, Ole Miss, Missouri State

5-seeds: Denver, New Mexico State, Miami-FL, UMass

6-seeds: Ohio, South Florida, Colorado, Maryland

7-seeds: Washington, College of Charleston, Rutgers, Wyoming

8-seeds: Pittsburgh, South Dakota State, UCLA, Loyola-MD

Ranking of Other Postseason Contenders: Drake, Iowa, Nebraska, Richmond, Kent State, Georgia, Charlotte, Providence