Bracketology: Arizona, Tennessee join No. 1 seeds

With some immense battles ahead this weekend during the Big 12/SEC challenge, Arizona and Tennessee join Purdue and Alabama as No. 1 seeds in today’s bracket update.  Both Purdue and Alabama are firmly entrenched and a loss would not alter either’s positioning.  The current race for the Boilermakers and Crimson Tide is the right to lead the South Region in Louisville.

Bracketology

Arizona claims its spot due do its impressive 5-0 record against the upper tier of Quad 1 (Quad 1A).  Those wins include: UCLA, Tennessee, Indiana and San Diego State.  Tennessee has more work to do to hold its position, although the Volunteers’ metrics are impressive, including No.2 ratings in the NET and predictive metrics.  They get a huge opportunity to impress (or disappoint) when Texas arrives on Saturday.

A tight race is underway in the Big 12.  It’s a rare occurrence, but today’s bracket features five Big 12 teams among the four seed lines.  Thus, you will see more than one Big 12 team in a region within those parameters.  This would be an authorized exception to bracketing principles of separating teams from the same conference among the top four seeds.

Quick Takes: Vols look good, take down Washington

Behind 34 points from Jordan Bowden and Lamonte Turner, Tennessee looked good in its first strong test of the season, taking down Washington in Toronto.  Balanced in their attack, the Volunteers featured four double-digit scorers and collected 19 assists on 25 field goals.

We’ve got a lot of basketball ahead, but Saturday’s win over the Huskies should be a confidence boost for a Vols team that graduated significant scoring in the form of Jordan Bone, Admiral Schofield and Grant Williams.  Looking forward, Tennessee has four more non-conference tests before January: Florida State, Memphis, Cincinnati and Wisconsin.

No major concerns for Washington. The Huskies are young, so some inconsistency is expected.  Grabbing a split between Baylor and Tennessee is solid, and UW’s schedule sets up for a nice run until a December 8 matchup with Gonzaga.

Bracketology: Committee pens Duke, Tennessee as 1-2 punch

Few of us were surprised on Saturday when the Selection Committee announced that Duke and Tennessee were Nos. 1 and 1A on their Seed List.  After an action-filled weekend, neither position has changed, although one could argue that Duke’s win at Virginia, giving the Blue Devils a regular-season sweep, might create a more distinct line of separation between those two.

Bracketology    |    Seed List

The only top-line move this morning was lifting Gonzaga to No. 3 on the Seed List and dropping Virginia to No. 4.  Gonzaga still reigns over the West Region and Virginia the Midwest.  Elsewhere, team positions on the first four lines mirror what the Committee gave us on Saturday.  One could argue whether or not Iowa State would stay after a home loss to TCU, or about how losses by Louisville and Wisconsin might also impact those lines.  For today, we’ll let the Committee’s voice be heard.

Unfortunately, the Committee didn’t provide us any sort of insight into what has become a very mediocre bubble picture.  Then again, why take on that headache right now? Hopefully, some cleaner lines of separation will develop over the next three weeks.

Seed List: Breaking down the top line

Who’s the best team in college basketball?  It’s a tough question, with four or five terrific options.  Who’s the team with the best resume among those five?  Figuring that out was the goal of a deliberate break-down early this morning.

How did it turn out?  The biggest debate was actually between teams four and five, in other words, the last No. 1 seed and the top No. 2 seed.  In this case, those teams were Virginia and Michigan.

Seed List

Ultimately, Michigan State moved to the first position.  The Spartans have a group-best six road wins, lead the nation’s No. 2 NET-rated Conference, have five wins against the currently projected at-large field and rank No. 1 against the Strength of Record.  MSU also has 11 wins against NET Groups 1/2 – including nine  against Group 1.  Note: the last NET rankings available at the time of publication was through Wednesday’s games (1/23).

Bracketology: Five teams, four spots for top line

Someone had to be the odd man, i.e. team, out this morning.  Try as I might, there simply wasn’t a way to fit five teams into four slots on the top seed line.  Five teams have deserving resumes, and if you consider Gonzaga, which you should, it’s really six teams for four spots.  Talk about your square pegs in round holes.

Bracketology   |   Seed List

Depending on your choice of metric and resume breakdown, there is no “wrong” order to the five (or six).  If we were in the Selection Committee room, discussions would be eventful.  After several run-throughs, the weekend chaos on the top line (Michigan, Virginia, and Kansas all lost), left Tennessee and Michigan State in the top two positions.  For what it’s worth, being a “projected league champion” for bracket purposes this morning ended up being a factor, too.  The good news:  We still have eight weeks to sort through the process, and usually, these things work themselves out.