First Look at My Projections vs. The Official Bracket

• 67 of 68 Teams in the Field (Virginia in instead of Oklahoma) & 72 of 72 teams NCAA considered for field when including NCAA Final Four out 
• 55 of 68 On or within One Seed Line (80.8 %)
• 29 Teams on the correct Seed Line (42.6%)
• 41 of 68 Teams within 2 spots of NCAA Final Ranking
• 314 of 408 Possible points in Bracket Matrix Scoring

Overall I'd give myself a B.  

This was not an easy field to get the final last four teams in, or to seed the field after the 4 Seed Line.  Given that, I feel pretty good about my work this year.  The Committee definetely had some very controversial seeds assigned and I will cover what I believe were some of the more egregious decisions by the committee below.

Virginia In the Field

Complaining about the last team in compared to any number of teams left out is an annual tradition after the NCAA reveals its field.  Who am I not to participate? 

In most seasons, people arguing this are typically nit picking minor differences between a group of teams that had largely underwhelming seasons.  This year, with 5 bid thieves, its different though.  Several teams that would have qualified any other year, got left out.  I had Virginia as the 1st Team out, and had Oklahoma instead.  I had a feeling they would be included, but not because they earned it, but rather to increase the number of ACC teams in the field, and because this is a program that has won a championship within the last 5 years, which of course shouldn't be criteria to be included, but too often is, I think. 

I wish I had followed my gut, as I did by including Michigan State, who was even less deserving than Virginia.   I learned my lesson with the kid glove treatment most committees give to Izzo and Michigan State.  Apparently now, Virginia and Tony Bennett seem to be getting the same type of consideration.  More on Michigan State to come.

Looking at the chart below you can plainly see, by virtually any measure comparing their resume to Oklahoma (First team left out by committee), Virginia (Last Team In) did not belong in this tournament.  Lets look at a side by side comparison:

Putting this Virginia in team appears to be driven by one metric ... how difficult of a non-conference schedule they played compared to Oklahoma.  As a tie breaker between very similar resume's in which all other factors suggest the teams are otherwise equal, I have no probelm breaking the tie by rewarding the team that challenged itself more outside of thier conference play.    But I can't for the life of me see how any one could objectively claim these two teams were otherwise equally deserving of inclusion except for the level of competition they played in their non-conference schedule.  

The only other completely non-objective factors that I think may have been factors were the committee feeling strongly that the Big 12 getting 9 teams was too many ... and the ACC only getting 5 was too few.  Neither of these factors should have been applied, if in fact they were.  I suspect Virginia recently having won a National Title (2019) probably also helped.

The other two teams I hear people complaining the loudest about not making it ahead of either Virginia or Oklahoma were Saint John's and Indiana State.  I did a similar compare using all four teams.  I'll post it here and you can decide for yourself what order you would have put them in.

Underseeding the Mountain West Conference Teams (Except San Deigo State)

I'm not sure I've seen a conference have so many of its teams systematically seeded so much lower than expected by the larger 'bracketology' community as the Mountain West  Conference (MWC) this year.  The MWC got a record 6 teams into the tournament.  One of those teams, New Mexico, got in as an automatic qualifier, but the committee spokesman made it clear that they would not have been included had it not won the MWC Tournament and claim.

A look at bracketmatrix.com shows that aside from San Deigo State, the remaining teams from the MWC were seeded an average of  2.5 seed lines below the consensus of hundreds of bracket submissions from people all over the country who project brackets.  Personally, the seeding of Nevada, Utah State, and Boise were the ones I found most suprising, and unwarranted.  It's unclear to me what the particular issue was the committee had except (and I paraphrase) 'Their best wins came against one another'.  San Deigo State, which in my opinion was about the 3rd best team in that conference this season, was the only one to escape the downgrading from the committee.  The only concievable reason I can imagine they didn't fall as well, when I compare their resume to the others in the conference, is that they made the NCAA Final last year.  That of course should have no bearing this season or any other season.  

How these teams fare this year will ultimately bear out if the committee got this right, but it has significant impacts on seeding beyond the MWC teams, who themselves will face better teams than proper seeding would have had them facing.  Playing an underseeded MWC team also means their opponents are facing significantly better competition than they should be by 2-3 Seed lines as well. Finally, it also means 10-12 Teams had their seed lines improved by at least one seed line as a result of  these 5 MWC Teams being moved below them on the seed list.  This would suggest they get a less challenging opponent, and presumably so does their opponent, then proper seeding would have produced.

Which Leads us to Gonzaga and Saint Mary's who were OVERseeded

If the committee wants to try and sell the idea that the teams from the MWC didn't play and beat enough quality opponents out of their conference, fine.  But to say it in the same year that both Saint Mary's and Gonzaga were 1 to 2 seedlines, respectively, over the consensus opinion muddies the water even more.  Saint Mary's only win against another team in the field not in their conference was over Colorado State, who the committee thought so little of that they relegated them to Dayton for a play-in game.  The only other wins they had against teams in the field, was Gonzaga, who they beat twice (including AT Gonzaga) and then wind up sharing a spot on the same seed line (5) with them.

Gonzaga for their part did have a nice late season win out of conference at Kentucky.  Their only other win outside of the conference who also made the tournament was ... wait for it ... Yale (NET  81) who recieved a 13 Seed. 

The West Coast Conference, in which Saint Mary's and Gonzaga participate is a 9 team league in which more than half have NET ratings are at 200 or above. By comparison, the MWC is an 11 Team league with 7 Teams with NET ratings 38 or below.  Either the conference competition you play paired with who you beat outside of it matters, or it doesn't.  The committee sent very mixed messages with significant OVER Seeding of Gonzaga and Saint Mary's while significantly UNDER seeding 5 teams from the Mountain West.

 Michigan State in AND a 9 Seed!?

Ok, I did have Michigan State in the field ... the LAST team in the field ... but I wasn't happy about doing it.  Between the idolization of Tom Izzo (even though its been 24 years since his last National Championship), the presistent rumors that he would retire after this year (though he has refuted them) and a 25 year streak of Michigan State making the tournament, I didn't see anyway the committee would leave them out.  In doing these projectioins my goal is to predict what the committee will do, not what I think they should do.  To be clear though, I feel that there were several more deserving teams to get in, and to get MSU's 9 seed. That they are included bothers me as a fan.  That thier incredibly mediocre season was further rewarded with a 9 Seed is frankly outrageous.  But who within the ranks of the NCAA will dare to call it out?  No one, that's who.  And so long as they don't, Michigan State will continue to get this treatment until Izzo does retire.

Lets take a look at what Michigan State's season looked like, by the numbers:

• RECORD:   19-14 (worst in the field among At-Large Teams)
• vs. Quad 1 & 2:  9-14 (Worst in the field among At-Large Teams)
• vs. Quads 1 through 3:  15-14 (Tied with Mississippi State for Worst among At-Large teams)
•  vs. Teams in the field:  3-11 (Worst in the Field among At-Large Teams)

If they were going to be included, they should have been playing tomorrow or Wednesday in Dayton in a Play-In game.  Instead they get a 9 seed, and a match up with Mississippi State (also over seeded, though not as egregiously). 

As if gifting them with a bid and letting them avoid a play-in game wasn't enough, they went even further and matched them up with a team at least 2 seed lines worse than they deserved, and that many felt should also have had to face a play-in game.  And by the way, if they do win they will play (barring a shocking upset) North Carolina next ... the 4th ranked #1 seed.

To be clear, I don't have anything against Tom Izzo, or Michigan State basketball for that matter.  Izzo is great coach, and runs a clean program from everything I can tell, despite some of the grotesque issues we have seen in other programs at Michigan State.  But gifting his team bids and unearned seeds is unseemly and diminishes the selection process.