We updated our bracketology this morning, and we’ve got a new number one.
Through yesterday’s games, our model projects Baylor to, come Selection Sunday, out-résumé Gonzaga.
It’s not all that surprising. Both teams are dominant. Both are still undefeated. Gonzaga has the status in the polls and more top-end victories, but Baylor’s day-in day-out performance has, mathematically, narrowly exceeded that of the Zags (Baylor is currently ranked first in KenPom), and they have more opportunities to build the résumé from here, with their toughest remaining regular season games visits to Oklahoma, West Virginia, and Kansas. Could the two flip again? Yes. But with every game Baylor wins, a more dangerous bullet is dodged than is dodged every time Gonzaga wins.
Does it really matter which is the first overall seed? Not much. There are marginal benefits to be had in potential Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight opponents, but really, teams are comparable enough on the 2, 3, and 4-lines that this is more a nominal distinction than a practical one. Still, it’ll get attention, and deservedly so. Each is historically good. We will, if the season is completed, one day accept one as better than the other. Until then, there will be debate over which is better. And the committee will factor into that.
Moving Up: Wisconsin, USC, Drake
Wisconsin performed well against Penn State last night, and with Illinois and Iowa each struggling a bit, their rest-of-season projection improved enough to nudge them up from the 5-line to the 3-line.
For USC, it was a road win over Stanford that achieved the same result. The Trojans had a risky one, won it, and now have a favorable next two weeks: UCLA and the Arizona’s at home sandwiching the Washington road trip. The Pac-12 might have its entrant to the national picture.
And finally, Drake. While the jury’s out on how good the Bulldogs really are, it’s a fact that KenPom has only dropped them lower after one result this year. In other words, they’ve exceeded expectations in all but one Division I game.
Will this continue? Maybe. The thing about systems like KenPom is that the reasonable belief, at any given point, is that they’ve “caught up” to a team. Early in the season, when preseason ratings are a factor, it’s fair to say KenPom hasn’t caught up to a team. By this point, though, continuous improvement just means the Bulldogs keep getting better. There’s no guarantee that will continue, and it’s equally likely they will get worse.
In the meantime, Drake’s played itself two seed lines ahead of the projected bubble. And that’s with a median final loss total of four.
Moving Down: Tennessee, Purdue, Stanford
Falling from the USC result is Stanford, who gives up the progress they’d made in distancing themselves from the bubble. Meanwhile…
Tennessee had a rough loss last night, falling in Oxford to Mississippi. It’s not an unexpected result—losing to middling conference teams on the road isn’t rare for teams in Tennessee’s stratum—but it does pull the Vols back down, and it does it quickly after an encouraging roughing-up of Kansas this weekend.
For Purdue, the loss at Maryland was even more understandable, but Purdue’s a bit further down the S-Curve than Tennessee, and the further down you go, the tighter it gets (generally speaking). The Boilermakers, like the Volunteers, are fine. But aspirations of climbing into 2-seed territory are not reasonable at the moment for either.
Moving In: Maryland, Morgan State (auto-bid)
For Maryland, the Purdue win was enough to bring them back up into the projected field, and surprisingly comfortably so, as a projected 10-seed. The Terrapins still have concerns about being held back by the lack of nonconference cushion, having just a 9-8 record against Division I competition despite having lost only to tournament teams, and having beaten Wisconsin, Illinois, and Minnesota on the road. We’ll say this about a lot of teams over the next six weeks, but Maryland has a very good chance to be the worst team by overall winning percentage invited into the tournament, something that is perfectly reasonable but will provoke a perfectly unreasonable reaction.
Up the road in Baltimore, Morgan State’s the new MEAC favorite, narrowly edging Norfolk State in probability.
Moving Out: Indiana, Norfolk State (auto-bid)
You wouldn’t expect an overtime loss to one of the ten best teams in the country to sink a team out of a tournament projection, but that’s what happened to Indiana last night. A four-point loss to Illinois and the Hoosiers are no longer in our projected field.
It’s not that simple, of course. The projection is a projection, and it takes into account all the interconnectedness that shapes team sheets. Iowa’s poor performance drags Indiana down a little. Purdue’s loss drags Indiana down a little. Stanford’s loss drags Indiana down a little. Texas’s loss drags Indiana down a little.
It’s a lot of little things, and it would only take a lot of little things to get Indiana back across the projected cut line, but for the moment, the Hoosiers are NIT-projected. As, kind of, are the North Carolina Tar Heels, who are still in our projected field but are also in our NIT Bracketology, victims of the one projected bid thieving.
