Tuesday, March 14, 2023

Ugh

Well, I'm not expecting much (any) traffic here after finishing in the lowest 10% of the Matrix this year. This was easily our worst showing, and it will probably cost us our place in the top 50% of the Matrix five year average.

What's interesting to me is how close we were to a much more respectable score. We whiffed on Oklahoma State and Rutgers, but nearly everyone whiffed on Rutgers. We put OKST in because of their SOS, and because many of their rankings were quite good. Knowing that the Committee only rarely puts in 15-loss teams as at-larges, or teams that are just two games over .500, we thought that a deep, powerful conference like the Big 12 was what got such teams in. We were wrong, so we lost six points.

We lost four more because of Big 12's Baylor, who we determined would barely hold on to their 2-seed over Marquette. We literally just had them reversed on our seed list (Baylor at 8, Marquette at 9) and that cost us 4 points because that put them on the wrong seed line too. 

And we lost four MORE on Xavier vs UConn. We should not have moved Connecticut ahead of Xavier because the Committee did not have them ahead of them last month, and the Huskies did not outplay the Musketeers enough to pass them. We ought to have caught that.

I'll admit to some brain lapses. We did not like Iowa's profile, but we had them far too low at 10. We also badly overestimated Princeton, because we used Yale as the yardstick and their profile was not as good as Yale (despite the win). But we made too many little mistakes, and we still struggle when evaluating the bottom 15-20 teams. 

I feel like we do respectably - 66/68 teams in, 64 of those within one seed line - for a guy and his kid when neither of us has time to watch as much hoops as we'd like. The science/art of bracketology is getting more refined every year. I don't have the tools or the time that many on the Matrix have, but I still enjoy the evaluation, seeding and bracketing process, and it's a fun hobby to share with my oldest. I love teaching my college course on it (even if my results aren't that great every year). So we'll keep plugging away at it. Much respect and congratulations to those who have this process nailed better than we do, I enjoy reading your work. We'll bounce back next year.

Sunday, March 12, 2023

2023 Final Bracket

 


2023 Final Bracket projection.

Seed list: 

1 ALABAMA

2 Kansas

3 Houston

4 Purdue

5 UCLA

6 TEXAS

7 ARIZONA

8 Baylor

9 MARQUETTE

10 Kansas State

11 GONZAGA

12 Connecticut

13 Indiana

14 Tennessee

15 Xavier

16 Virginia

17 Iowa State

18 DUKE

19 SAN DIEGO STATE

20 St. Mary's

21 TCU

22 Miami

23 Texas A&M

24 Missouri

25 Creighton

26 Kentucky

27 Michigan State

28 Northwestern

29 Arkansas

30 Maryland

31 Florida Atlantic

32 West Virginia

33 Auburn

34 Illinois

35 Memphis

36 Boise State

37 Penn State

38 Iowa

39 Utah State

40 Mississippi State

41 Rutgers

42 USC

43 Providence

44 Nevada

45 Arizona State

46 Oklahoma State

47 CHARLESTON

48 VCU

49 ORAL ROBERTS

50 KENT STATE

51 DRAKE

52 PRINCETON

53 LOUISIANA

54 IONA

55 KENNESAW STATE

56 FURMAN

57 MONTANA STATE

58 COLGATE

59 GRAND CANYON

60 UNC ASHEVILLE

61 UC SANTA BARBARA

62 VERMONT

63 NORTHERN KENTUCKY

64 SE MISSOURI STATE

65 TAMU-CORPUS CHRISTI

66 FAIRLEIGH DICKINSON

67 HOWARD

68 TEXAS SOUTHERN