This afternoon the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee will
be releasing their third annual top 16 team projection. The committee’s goal is
to shed light on the selection and seeding process, letting the public know
what factors they deem most important in determining where teams are ranked.
Below is my attempt to mimic what their ranking will be, as well as what region
the teams will play in. Note that this projection is reflective of results
through Friday 2/8.
Teams below are ranked in order by seed.
1 seeds: Duke, Virginia, Tennessee, Michigan
2 seeds: Gonzaga, Kentucky, North Carolina, Michigan State
3 seeds: Kansas, Houston, Marquette, Purdue
4 seeds: Louisville, Wisconsin, Nevada, Villanova
Teams just missing the cut (aka the 5 seeds): LSU, Iowa
State, Texas Tech, Iowa
Last season the committee implemented a four-tier
stratification that adjusts for location of the game, and that process is being
used again this season. The only change (and it is a big one) is that the metric
used to rank the teams has changed from the RPI to the NET. The NET is a more
modern model that was developed using machine learning. It includes factors
such as offensive and defensive efficiency, margin of victory (capped at 10
points), and location of the game. The old RPI metric only considered the
winning percentage of the opponents on a team’s schedule and adjusted for
location. The NET is a much improved model and is fairly aligned with other
popular rankings that are publicly available such as KenPom, BPI, and the Sagarin
rankings. Below is the four-tier stratification previously mentioned:
NET Quadrant 1: Home (1-30) Neutral
(1-50) Away (1-75)
NET Quadrant 2: Home (31-75) Neutral (51-100) Away (76-135)
NET Quadrant 3: Home (76-160) Neutral
(101-200) Away (136-240)
NET Quadrant 4: Home (161-351) Neutral (201-351) Away
(241-351)
Below is an explanation of my rankings.
Duke, Virginia and Tennessee are the consensus top three
teams – a case can be made for ranking them in any order. After that, I believe
there are three teams fighting for the final one seed: Michigan, Gonzaga, and
Kentucky. Below are the Cliff Notes versions of each team’s NET profile:
Michigan – Michigan is tied for the most combined Quad 1 and
Quad 2 wins in the nation with 13, with five of those wins coming against Quad
1. They have two losses, both in Quad 1 on the road and to teams ranked in the
top 25 of the NET. Last year the committee placed emphasis on road wins –
Michigan is 5-2 on the road in Quad 1 and Quad 2 games and have a neutral court
win in Quad 2. The biggest blemish on their profile is their strength of
schedule (SOS), which ranks 69th nationally despite playing in the
Big Ten conference. This is driven by their non-conference SOS being ranked 184th
nationally (out of 353).
Gonzaga – The Zags once again have a solid team that will
win the West Coast Conference regular season and tournament titles and will
likely be rewarded with a top two seed come Selection Sunday. The hang up, as
always, is that their conference is far weaker than all the other teams that
are considered for one and two seeds. Despite this, Gonzaga has four Quad 1
wins and four Quad 2 wins. They own one of the best wins any team has this
season – a neutral court win over Duke, arguably the best team in the nation.
However, the quality of wins drops off thereafter, with the next best wins
being against Washington (ranked 25th) San Francisco (two wins,
ranked 52nd) and Creighton (ranked 55th). Their two
losses are to Tennessee and North Carolina, and both of those teams will also
likely be ranked in the top two seed lines come Selection Sunday. Gonzaga’s SOS
ranks 38th nationally with a non-conference SOS ranking 50th.
Kentucky – The Wildcats have the most Quad 1 wins of the
teams under consideration for the final one seed with six, and that includes
wins over North Carolina on a neutral court, at Louisville, and at home versus
Kansas. Kentucky’s SOS ranks 50th nationally and their
non-conference SOS ranks 24th. Their blemish is a neutral court loss
to Seton Hall, who ranks 67th nationally and is considered a Quad 2
loss, something Michigan and Gonzaga do not have on their resumes.
A solid case can be made for any of these teams, but I think
Michigan will get the nod due to the quality of their best wins (North
Carolina, Purdue, and at Villanova) and lack of a bad loss.
After those teams I think that North Carolina and Michigan
State will round out the two seeds. These teams own a high volume of Quad 1 and Quad 2 wins, they just have more losses than the teams above them.
I’m projecting the three seeds to be Kansas, Houston,
Marquette, and Purdue. I don’t anticipate much change here. Kansas has the #1
raked SOS, both overall and in the non-conference. As such, they have compiled eight
wins in Quad 1, which is only behind Michigan State for the most nationally.
They do have two loses in Quad 2 and six losses overall, but the volume of Quad
1 wins was important last year and I imagine that to be the case yet again this
season.
Houston only has three Quad 1 wins, the lowest of any team up to this
point in my projection, but they have eight Quad 2 wins. This is a function of
them playing in a slightly weaker conference than the other teams around them
in the ranking and them scheduling a lot of home games – 16 of their 22 wins
have come at home. The edge they have over other teams is they only have one
loss, and it is not a bad loss (at 50th ranked Temple).
Marquette
owns seven Quad 1 wins which is impressive, but just two Quad 2 wins. They are
also not as favorably ranked in the NET or KenPom rankings relative to the
other teams around them in this projection, likely due to them having seven
wins against Quad 4 teams which is reflective in their non-conference SOS being
ranked 106. Quad 4 games are essentially games that should never be lost by a
team selected to the NCAA tournament.
Purdue owns the #2 SOS nationally, thanks
in part to them playing in the Big Ten and their non-conference SOS being
ranked 28th. They have six Quad 1 wins (one them being right on the
cut line, at Penn State) and four Quad 2 wins. Their blemish that knocks them
down is a Quad 3 loss to Notre Dame, which is also right on the cutline of
being just a Quad 2 loss.
The final four teams I have making the projection are
Louisville, Wisconsin, Nevada, and Villanova. I think that Louisville and Wisconsin
are safely in. Louisville owns three wins over top 10 teams in the NET rankings
– the most of any team. They also have the 5th rank SOS nationally.
Their hold up is having just eight total Quad 1 and Quad 2 wins. Wisconsin has
seven Quad 1 wins and five Quad 2 wins for 12 combined wins in that cohort –
that is the second most nationally. Wisconsin’s blemish is a road loss to
Western Kentucky, who ranks 123rd nationally.
After that we come to
the most intriguing resume of all the teams in this projection: Nevada. The
Wolfpack have zero Quad 1 wins – that’s right, no “quality” wins. They do own
eight Quad 2 wins, however, with six of those wins coming in the non-conference.
That shows they attempted to schedule tough, but unfortunately for them the
Pac-12 conference is way, way down this season (in fact it is likely just a one
bid league). They played, and beat, Arizona State, USC and Utah. Those teams
typically are in the hunt for an NCAA tournament berth, but this year that is
not the case. Nevada also won at Loyola-Chicago, the Cinderella team from last
season’s NCAA Tournament that made a run to the Final Four. Loyola-Chicago is
projected to win their conference, but they rank 124th nationally. The
other problem Nevada has is their only loss came against a Quad 3 opponent, and
that loss will likely remain in Quad 3 all season. They have the worst SOS of
any team considered for this projection (108th nationally) but their
non-conference SOS ranks 43rd. I think the committee will factor in
the combination of only having one total loss and Nevada’s attempt to schedule tough
in the non-conference and reward them with a spot in the top 16, but I would
not be surprised to see them just outside the top 16.
Villanova, winner of two of the past three national titles,
rounds out the projection. They only have three Quad 1 wins, but they have nine
Quad 2 wins. That combination of 12 wins in that cohort is what separates them
from the teams beneath them. What holds them back relative to the teams above
them is having two Quad 2 losses and the lack of Quad 1 wins – three total is
the second lowest only ahead of Nevada.
The four teams that I have outside of the top 16 that I
could see making the projection are LSU, Iowa State, Texas Tech and Iowa. LSU
has a very similar profile to Villanova, but the key difference I think between
them is the total number of Quad 1 and Quad 2 wins. LSU has ten to Villanova’s
twelve. And, let’s be honest, there is likely to be some name recognition bias that
comes into play here. Iowa State, Texas Tech, and Iowa also have similar
profiles to each other – poor non-conference SOS, five total losses, similar
number of Quad 1 and Quad 2 wins. The blemish on all three of these teams relative
to the teams ahead of them in this projection is the non-conference SOS. The committee
has historically penalized teams for scheduling a poor non-conference schedule,
but that is also correlated with the lack of opportunities to pick up quality
wins.
This is the second best day of the year in the bracketology universe,
only behind Selection Sunday, and I’m looking forward to learning what the
committee values as that will not only help rank these team but also help shape
the bubble picture in determining which teams to include and which teams to exclude
in rounding out the field of 68.
