Syracuse has found its way into our updated bracketology this morning, which means the ACC now has the same number of teams in the projected field as the Big Ten: Eight.
Before we go any further, let’s make abundantly clear that the ACC is not as good as the Big Ten. It is not nearly as good as the Big Ten. The ACC is worse than the SEC this year. The SEC! In men’s basketball! I know people use number of tournament teams to measure conference strength, but they should not do that. It is immoral to be dishonest with oneself, even about something as trivial as the ACC’s strength as a basketball conference in the 2020-21 season. You think we would’ve had the capitol insurrection if large swaths of the nation hadn’t trained themselves in the art of self-deception on college football message boards in the aughts? Ok, maybe it still would’ve happened. Chicken or the egg, I suppose.
Anyway, the ACC has eight teams in the field now, which would be a solid haul, even for a 15-team league. That’s a good chunk of revenue. It’s a good chunk of notoriety. It’d look good in some weird stat tweets.
But how are those teams’ chances, really?
There are three locks in the ACC: Florida State will make the tournament. Clemson will make the tournament. Virginia will make the tournament. There is one team that, to use Bubble Watch nomenclature, “should be in:” Louisville. Our model expects the Cardinals to lose this weekend to UVA, and then to split their ACC Tournament games, beating someone like Duke before losing to someone like Virginia again. If the Cardinals lose this weekend and draw another bubble team (or worse) in the first round, they could miss the field. But they’re probably safe.
Then, there are five teams somewhere around the bubble. There’s Georgia Tech, with ten at-large teams between them and even our model’s bid-thief-adjusted cut line. The Yellow Jackets visit Wake Forest tonight. Win that and they move into Louisville’s territory. There’s North Carolina, who can probably survive a loss to Duke, but maybe can’t, and either way may still have some work to do in the ACC Tournament. There’s Virginia Tech, whose résumé is hard to evaluate with historic data because the Hokies only played 20 regular season games, seven of which were nonconference affairs, but who the bracketology ecosystem feels good about and our model feels ok about. The model has them comparable to UNC, but it also expects them to get a pretty solid first opponent in the conference tournament and lose that game, whereas it expects UNC to win at least two more. There’s Syracuse, who’s surged in recent days and occupies the bid-thief slot right now. The Orange’s regular season is done, and our model expects them to win their ACC Tournament opener (possibly against NC State?) but then lose, which all goes to say that Jim Boeheim needs two wins to feel remotely safe. And finally, there’s Duke, who’s the 16th overall seed in our NIT Bracketology under an expectation from our model that they’ll lose to UNC, beat a bad team in their ACC Tournament opener, and then play a tossup in their second game. It’s not a great shot, but it’s a shot, and it’s fair to imagine Duke might have some subjective pieces to their evaluation that other teams won’t have. There’s just more emotion there, whether it’s conscious or not.
So, while the ACC currently has eight teams in our projected field, it’s more likely than not that one or more drop out. It’s more likely they’ll get six than eight. But eight’s possible. Heck, nine’s possible, or even ten if we’re getting crazy and looking at bid thieves.
Now, for today’s biggest movement. Nobody up or down more than a seed line, so just in and out.
Moving In: Syracuse, Eastern Washington (auto-bid)
Syracuse slips past Drake as our model gets the reactions from ratings systems to its win over Clemson. The teams were already next to one another, so not a big change practically speaking. EWU, meanwhile, slips past Weber State after the Beekeepers underwhelmed last night. It’s close there too, and auto-bids, to be clear, go to the team most likely to win the conference tournament in our model, not just the highest seed still standing.
Moving Out: Drake, Weber State (auto-bid)
Again, no real concern for Drake. Bulldogs’ median simulation, for what it’s worth, ends with them losing to Loyola in the conference championship. Do less than that, they’re out. Do more than that, they’re in as an auto-bid. Do exactly that, and hold on tight.
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We got the last of the conferences to “almost-finalized” last night, which just means now that we’re lacking tiebreakers for some conference seedings in the model (and those aren’t particularly impactful, and will be all settled by Monday morning when the last of the leagues will have finished their regular seasons).
Conference tournament probabilities for those with games yesterday and/or today:
Atlantic 10 Conference
St. Bonaventure: 27.4%
VCU: 26.2%
Saint Louis: 21.5%
Davidson: 11.4%
Dayton: 7.2%
UMass: 2.5%
George Mason: 1.9%
Duquesne: 1.9%
With Duquesne taking down Richmond, St. Bonaventure’s path’s now a little easier, and the Bonnies narrowly overtake VCU as the favorites, at least for today.
Atlantic Sun Conference
Liberty: 77.6%
Stetson: 8.7%
Florida Gulf Coast: 8.5%
North Alabama: 5.3%
I believe that a North Alabama win would result in Liberty making the field (North Alabama is ineligible as they transition from Division II), but I’m not positive on that. Haven’t seen it from the A-Sun itself yet.
Big South Conference
Winthrop: 85.3%
Campbell: 14.8%
Rounding thing happened here. Anyway, championship game on Sunday.
Missouri Valley Conference
Loyola: 63.5%
Drake: 22.3%
Missouri State: 7.9%
Indiana State: 4.4%
Northern Iowa: 0.9%
Valparaiso: 0.4%
Southern Illinois: 0.3%
Evansville: 0.3%
No big changes after the first round.
Ohio Valley Conference
Belmont: 49.0%
Morehead State: 22.4%
Eastern Kentucky: 14.8%
Jacksonville State: 13.8%
With higher seeds rolling through the first two days, Belmont is still not quite favored over the field.
Southern Conference
Furman: 27.0%
UNC-Greensboro: 26.5%
Wofford: 14.0%
East Tennessee State: 12.0%
Chattanooga: 7.0%
VMI: 6.6%
Mercer: 5.3%
The Citadel: 0.7%
Western Carolina: 0.7%
Samford: 0.3%
Should be a good one again, as with the last few years.
Sun Belt Conference
Georgia State: 29.8%
Coastal Carolina: 21.0%
Texas State: 18.5%
Louisiana-Lafayette: 11.6%
South Alabama: 5.7%
Arkansas-Little Rock: 3.2%
Appalachian State: 2.9%
UT-Arlington: 2.8%
Arkansas State: 2.2%
Georgia Southern: 1.2%
Louisiana-Monroe: 0.8%
Troy: 0.5%
Coastal Carolina sneakily having a good year. Lot of teams in the mix here, too.
West Coast Conference
Gonzaga: 82.6%
BYU: 16.0%
Saint Mary’s: 0.7%
Pepperdine: 0.3%
Pacific: 0.2%
Loyola Marymount: 0.1%
San Francisco: 0.1%
Santa Clara: 0.02%
Comically inconsequential games the next two days.
***
Busy days ahead.
