Seed List
Below are two tables that display the current Seed List (at the time of publication) – a tool used for my bracket projects and by the actual Selection Committee to seed teams into the bracket.
A couple of things to note:
Teams in BOLD represent the automatic bid based on league results at the time of publication. Update: With Championship Week here, bold will be reserved for automatic qualifiers.
The Seed List is not a poll. It is a ranking of teams based on the overall field at the time of publication. Whether it’s NET, KenPom or some other metric, a variety of factors go into the Seed List at any given point in time. The Seed List reflects the 68-team field – and the Top 100 teams (at the time).
Updated: March 12, 2020 (7:30 a.m. ET)
To make it easier to follow, I didn’t use an actual “S” shape on the table; rather the highest seed on each line is to the left.
| March 12 | 1-68 | |||
| 1. Kansas | 2. Gonzaga | 3. Baylor | 4. Dayton |
| 5. San Diego St | 6. Florida State | 7. Villanova | 8. Creighton |
| 9. Kentucky | 10. Duke | 11. Michigan State | 12. Seton Hall |
| 13. Maryland | 14. Oregon | 15. Louisville | 16. Wisconsin |
| 17. Ohio State | 18. Auburn | 19. Butler | 20. BYU |
| 21. Iowa | 22. Penn State | 23. Virginia | 24. West Virginia |
| 25. Illinois | 26. Michigan | 27. Providence | 28. Arizona |
| 29. Saint Mary’s | 30. USC | 31. LSU | 32. Colorado |
| 33. Houston | 34. Arizona State | 35. Oklahoma | 36. Indiana |
| 37. Rutgers | 38. Marquette | 39. Florida | 40. Utah State |
| 41. UCLA | 42. Texas Tech | 43. NC State | 44. E. Tenn St |
| 45. Texas | 46. Xavier | 47. Cincinnati | 48. S.F. Austin |
| 49. Liberty | 50. Akron | ||
| 51. Yale | 52. Vermont | 53. New Mexico St | 54. North Texas |
| 55. Bradley | 56. Hofstra | 57. Belmont | 58. Little Rock |
| 59. No Dakota St | 60. UC-Irvine | 61. E. Washington | 62. No Kentucky |
| 63. Winthrop | 64. Boston Univ | 65. Siena | 66. PV-AM |
| 67. Robert Morris | 68. NC Central | ||
This is where the FIRST OUT at-large teams begin. As a reminder … automatic qualifiers have to be ranked within the Field of 68.
| SEED LIST | 69 – 80 |
|||
| 69. Richmond | 70. Wichita State | 71. Stanford | 72. Northern Iowa |
| 73. Mississippi St | 74. Memphis | 75. Saint Louis | 76. Arkansas |
| 77. Rhode Island | 78. South Carolina | 79. Oklahoma St | 80. Tulsa |
How do you figure Maryland-Creighton -Nova -Seton Hall- ahead of Kentucky?
I would like to hear your reasoning. Your site is the best, therefore I am very interested in your logic. Thank you very kindly.
Joe … it’s largely based on better overall profiles due to number of quality wins, SOS, etc. The SEC isn’t really helping UK that much.
Examples:
Maryland: 7-5 vs. Q1; 13-5 vs. Quads 1/2; 10 wins against teams “In the Field”; SOS 45, NC SOS 58
Villanova: 8-6 v.s Q1; 15-5 vs. Quads 1/2; 7 wins against teams “In the Field”; SOS 4; NC SOS 36
Creighton: 9-6 vs. Q!; 14-6 vs. Quads 1/2; 10 wins against teams “In the Field”; SOS 14; NC SOS 115
Seton Hall: 10-5 vs. Q1; 15-7 vs. Quads 1/2; 7 wins against teams “In the Field”; SOS 21; NC SOS 61
Kentucky: 6-3 vs. Q1; 11-4 vs. Quads 1/2; 5 wins against teams “In the Field”; SOS 94; NC SOS 155.
Plus, Kentucky has the loss to Evansville (NET 250-ish) which is far worse than any losses of the above three. Creighton and Villanova haven’t lost to anyone outside Quad 1 and Nova’s worst loss is upper tier Quad 1.
This isn’t everything, but it’s a quick overview.
People seem to reference KenPom a lot but never Sagarin when talking about other metrics than the NET.
Kentucky is 6th in Sagarin and Duke is 19th
How individual Committee members choose to use additional metrics (beyond the NET) is be up that individual. Some may value one over the other. FWIW, the SOR (Strength of Record) rating (which is more results based rather than predictive) is also on the Team Sheets. UK was 11th in the SOR before Wednesday’s results. Ultimately, I think fans love to talk about KenPom, etc. because they hear a lot about it; but even KenPom has said his analytics are for predictive purposes and do not measure the same criteria as the Committee. Kentucky’s biggest challenge to climbing (above the 3 line, let’s say) is that team’s like Maryland, Villanova, Seton Hall and Creighton all have more quality and NCAA level wins – and will be able to keep building on those because of the strength of the Big Ten and Big East. Can UK reach the 2-line, yes. But with three weeks left, they may need a little help to get there.