Bracketology: New list of No. 1 seeds

Fresh off an incredible Feast Week of college hoops, we have a new group of teams on the No. 1 seed line: Arizona, Virginia, Purdue and Texas.  Early projections are always a mixed bag, but finding a collection of November resumes better than Arizona, Virginia and Purdue is a tough task.

Bracketology
Seed List

Houston opened the season on the top line and may well return.  To date, however, the Cougars best wins are Oregon and Kent State.  It’s not Houston’s fault the Ducks have staggered out the gate, but it’s reality.  Putting it another way, Houston hasn’t done anything to fall, but several other teams put passed them with stronger early profiles.  Soon enough, the Cougars host Alabama and travel to Virginia.  Opportunity awaits.

Keep in mind, it’s still November.  Current standing is not necessarily an indicator of future results. Some teams have yet to be truly tested.  Others have quality losses.

Bracket Report: Gonzaga clinches West Region

Following Gonzaga’s win over Saint Mary’s, we should have a least one piece of the No. 1 seed puzzle in place.  The Zags will reign over the West Region – and they will likely be the NCAA Tournament’s top overall seed on Sunday night.

Bracketology
Seed List

Today, action begins for some bubble teams:
Xavier battles Butler in its Big East opener;
Wake Forest takes on Boston College in the ACC;
Virginia meets Louisville (ACC).

A couple of minor adjustments on the Seed List – and Tuesday’s automatic qualifiers – are reflected in this morning’s bracket update.  Tomorrow, we turn the pressure cooker up a few degrees.

Quick Takes: Surprising losses for Oklahoma, Virginia

Oklahoma and Virginia absorbed surprising losses Tuesday night.  We won’t know exactly how those miscues impact each team’s resume until later in the season, but neither was ideal, that’s for sure.

Perhaps the Sooners were looking ahead to Saturday’s matchup with Arkansas – especially after knocking off Florida last Wednesday at the Lloyd Norman Center.  Regardless, Butler entered the arena without several key players, which makes the upset all the more unexpected.  Good win for Butler.  A suspect defeat for OU.

With the loss at James Madison, Virginia how has L’s to Navy and JMU on its non-conference resume.  In a vacuum, team’s lose.  The bigger issue for UVA appears to be consistency.  The team that showed up at JMU looked nothing like the group that beat Providence by 18 and took high-scoring Iowa down the wire in Charlottesville.  So we have this question: Which team shows up on any given night?  Until that gets answered, it’s hard to get a read on UVA’s standing.

Quick Takes: Virginia nets key win over Florida State

Trailing late, Virginia rallied to beat Florida State in Charlottesville, netting the Cavaliers a key Quadrant 1 win over Florida State.  Beforehand, UVA’s best profile wins were against fellow bubble teams – Syracuse, Virginia Tech and Arizona State.  And that’s without factoring in losses to South Carolina and Boston College.

One win does not a season nor a profile make.  But if Virginia wants a chance to defend its national title in the NCAA tournament, beating FSU was a big step in that direction. Looking ahead, there’s no return trip to Tallahassee.  UVA’s closing chances for additional marquee wins are a pair of games against Louisville and a visit from Duke.

Elsewhere, the bubble wasn’t so kind.  Additional Quick Takes:

Quick Takes: It’s getting late early for UVA

It’s starting to get late early for Virginia.

As the Cavaliers’ offensive struggles continue, so does their NCAA tournament profile.  Ranked 60th in the NCAA’s NET ratings on Monday morning, UVA dropped its third home game of the season, falling by two points to NC State.  If nothing else, it was a missed opportunity to parlay a home game into a victory over another team fighting for a tournament bid.

Further hampering UVA is the simple fact that this year’s ACC isn’t as loaded with NCAA-quality wins.  Which brings us here: there’s both good and bad news ahead.  The Cavaliers’ closing schedule is both challenging and opportunistic.  They have a home date with Florida State next week, two games against Louisville and a visit from Duke.   Assuming UVA avoids further unexpected losses (like South Carolina and Boston College), there’s still time to recover.  But it’s definitely feeling late early in Charlottesville.