Bracket Gurus Accuracy

Our Bracket Gurus had a rather nice day today.   It wasn’t the best year ever, but it beat last year by a few seedings.

We picked 67 of the 68 teams in the field.  This is the second year in a row, we were right on 67 of the 68 teams after picking a perfect 68 for 68 in 2017.

We had 39 of the 68 teams picked exactly where they were seeded.

We had 22 teams off by one seed line.

We had 6 teams off by two seed lines.

The one team we missed just so happened to be the team from the hometown of our Captain, Belmont.  We selected TCU and missed on that one.

Coming tomorrow evening, be sure to check back for our annual Bracketnomics Report.

Bracket Gurus 68 Team Field

The Gurus Have Reached A Verdict

In New York, the NCAA Men’s Basketball Selection Committee by now has agreed on 68 teams and only a little moving in the seed lines is yet to come.  After last night’s games, especially after the Oregon win over Washington in the Pac-12 Championship Game, it basically came down to about 70 teams competing for 68 spots.

The Gurus met via conference this morning and quickly eliminated all but four of the teams on the Bubble for three spots in the field.  By the end of the coffee talk, we had agreed to eliminate one team, leaving three teams for the final two spots.  There’s the rub; at this point, we had a hung jury.

In the Committee room, they break for ice cream at this point.  The Bracket Gurus share something in common with each other but totally opposite of the Committee.  All 12 Gurus are into the Keto-Paleo-Bulletproof way of life.  We not only didn’t break for ice cream, none of us consumed more than our upgraded coffee.

Unfortunately, it was an early Sunday morning funeral that broke up the meeting and allowed the Gurus to step away from the numbers, which was ironic to the max.  The dearly departed friend of the Captain had been a certified public accountant as well as a sports fanatic.

The Gurus reconvened via cyberspace while consuming mass quantities of healthy fat and good quality animal protein (sorry Vegan friends).  Once satiated, the 12 Gurus realized that in all but one city where we reside, it is too beautiful to be indoors.  So, we quickly agreed on that 68th team as well as which team is sadly number 69.

To borrow from the great Jim Nantz, “Friends,” here are the 68 teams we have selected to represent the NCAA Tournament Field.  They are presented in alphabetical order.  The seeding will come in our final installment to be published as we have a Big Ten Tournament Champion.  If the game is a blowout, the seeding will appear before the conclusion of the game.  If the game is close, then expect the seeding to be on this site within 5 minutes of the conclusion of the game.  It will be marked as our “Final Selection.”

The following 68 teams as voted 12-0 by our gurus are:

(3 One-Bid Tournaments to be decided today)

Abilene Christian

Arizona St.

Atlantic 10:  Winner of St. Bonaventure vs. Saint Louis

Auburn

Baylor

Bradley

Buffalo

Cincinnati

Colgate

Duke

Fairleigh-Dickinson

Florida

Florida St.

Gardner-Webb

Gonzaga

Houston

Iona

Iowa

Iowa St.

Ivy: Winner of Harvard vs. Yale

Kansas

Kansas St.

Kentucky

Liberty

Louisville

LSU

Marquette

Maryland

Michigan

Michigan St.

Minnesota

Mississippi St.

Montana

Murray St.

North Carolina Central

Nevada

New Mexico St.

North Carolina

North Dakota St.

Northeastern

Northern Kentucky

Ohio St.

Oklahoma

Old Dominion

Ole Miss

Oregon

Prairie View A&M

Purdue

Saint Mary’s

Seton Hall

St. John’s

Sun Belt: Winner of Georgia State vs. Texas-Arlington

Syracuse

TCU

Temple

Tennessee

Texas Tech

UC-Irvine

UCF

Utah St.

VCU

Vermont

Villanova

Virginia

Virginia Tech

Washington

Wisconsin

Wofford

 

It came down to Arizona State versus North Carolina State.  The Sun Devils won out due to a better strength of schedule and better results in the 1st and 2nd Quadrant.

Bracketnomics 2019

How We Select Our Bracket

Welcome to PiRate Ratings Bracketnomics 2019.

This tutorial will help you earn your Bachelor of Madness Degree. Just remember that  it is not be a BS degree; it is a BM degree, so you may want to think twice before telling others you received it from PiRate U.

Most universities have some type of history that potential enrollees can examine before deciding to matriculate. That’s to make the school look worthy of consideration (and receive financial patronage). Our PiRate School of Bracketnomics has been a bit up and down throughout our history. When we first debuted as an online course, our selections and predictions put us into Ivy League/Cal Tech/MIT league. We isolated some key points from back-tested data that worked. Some of the early pointers that helped us pick brackets were things that would appear obvious to most people–scoring margin, rebounding margin, field goal percentage margin, turnover margin, schedule strength, and the ability to win away from one’s home court.

Our big breakthrough that helped us devise our first advanced metric came about when CBS’s Clark Kellogg mentioned that teams with “spurtability” tended to do best in the NCAA Tournament. What is spurtability? It is exactly what it sounds like, the ability for a team to go on a scoring spurt.

In the 1964 Final Four, tiny UCLA with no starter over 6 foot 5, went on an 11-0 scoring spurt to put away Kansas State in the semifinals, and then the following evening, put a much taller and favored Duke team away with an incredible 16-0 spurt in 2 1/2 minutes just before halftime.

How did a much smaller UCLA team put a taller, favored Duke team away with that 16-0 run? It didn’t happen because the Bruins scored baskets on eight half-court possessions, while Duke missed shots on eight half-court possessions. No, it happened because UCLA pressed Duke out of the gym that night, forcing 29 turnovers, many by steals, and then scoring easy fast-break points.

Similarly, the 1968 UCLA team put away North Carolina in the Championship Game with a couple of smaller spurts. It wasn’t the press that did the trick this time. This North Carolina team could handle the ball and break the press, and this UCLA team did not rely as much on forcing turnovers to beat opponents. With the great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in the middle, Coach Wooden relied on muscle and speed to destroy the enemy. On this night, North Carolina tried to slow the game down by using the four-corners offense, but the plan was no more successful than 28 other opponents’ plans against the Bruins.

It was a different dominating statistic that gave the Bruins the edge that night. North Carolina rarely received a second chance to score when they missed a shot, and UCLA had numerous put back baskets on offensive rebounds. The Bruins dominated on the glass with an almost 2 to 1 rebounding advantage, and their transition game was still the best in the business with Lucius Allen running the point on the fast break.

Our captain perused all the boxscores of past NCAA Tournament games. He read microfilms of archived newspaper reports of games over the course of 30 years of NCAA Tournaments, and he combined the eyewitness reports with the statistics of the teams to locate the factors that predicted which teams were more likely to enjoy a big scoring spurt. He discovered that half-court offenses and half-court defenses that led to one team connecting on a very high percentage of shots while the other team missed a high percentage of shots seldom led to these spurts by themselves and very rarely allowed a team to win six, or even just four NCAA Tournament games.

It was rare for Team A to hit eight out of 10 shots, while Team B hit only one out of ten shot, leading to a 16-2 run. So, what caused the great spurtabilities of the teams? The Captain discovered that in a large majority of the cases where a team went on a big scoring run in the NCAA Tournament, it was due to these factors:
1. Dominating rebounding at both ends of the court
2. Forcing turnovers (especially steals)
3. Getting easy fast break baskets or forcing the opponent to foul to stop the fast break

From this point, the Captain devised what has come to be the most important factor in picking NCAA Tournament winners. He called it “The R+T Rating.” After trial and error using different data points, the Captain created a formula that doubled rebounding margin, added turnover margin, and then gave additional weight to steals and the prevention of steals. The result was an approximation for how many extra scoring chances (and predicted points) a team might be expected to receive versus the average college team. If Team A had an R+T rating of 20, and Team B had an R+T rating of 10, then Team A would be expected to have the ability to score an average of 10 extra points against Team B just from these extra scoring opportunities. Team B could still win if they were a lot more accurate on their shots, thus neutralizing Team A’s spurtability advantage.

Immediately, in the first year publishing this data online, the PiRates successfully picked Florida to win its first national championship, and the Gators came through with a surprise title. In all six of their tournament wins in 2006, they enjoyed spurts that broke close games open. In their big upset win over top-seeded Villanova, the Gators’ pressure man-to-man defense made it difficult for the Villanova perimeter to get an open look, and when the Wildcats drove by into the lane, Joakim Noah and Al Horford were there waiting to stop the offense. The two Gator big men totally controlled the boards that afternoon, and Florida advanced with a couple of spurts that put the game safely in the win column.

Early on in the history of our Bracketnomics, our success continued and brought us a tiny bit of national notoriety. A little success swelled the heads of all the PiRates. We became too big for our tiny ship. We began to try to perfect our system by adding additional information. We thought for a few years that teams that relied on the three-point shot were at a disadvantage against teams that pounded the ball inside, because so many of the tournament games were held in giant stadiums, even domes, and it affected depth perception and made it hard to aim on outside shots. There was a time when we discounted teams that won games by shooting a lot of foul shots, because the officials did not call as many fouls in the tournament.

The success of the PiRate Ratings Bracketnomics led to some mainstream media sources linking to us, and we saw our readership increase by large multiples, especially between the second week of March and the first week of April. And, then what happened? After correctly picking the national champion during Bracket Picking day for three consecutive years; and after picking tiny George Mason to contend for a Final Four spot when Jim Larranaga guided the Patriots to the Final Four; and after picking Duke, Connecticut, and Kentucky to win and hit on another three in a row, the bottom fell out.

Just like the Dosage Index for the Kentucky Derby, the criteria began to lose its effectiveness. Too many basketball equivalents of Strike The Gold and Real Quiet began winning when the profile predicted they had little or no chance. While R+T ratings still remained effective, other criteria not used by us began to be more predictive of reality.

The better three-point shooting teams started to win more and more. Watching the Golden State Warriors dominate the NBA and then seeing how almost every NBA team tried to copy them in some way, it became apparent that advanced metrics were changing the game, just like Sabermetrics changed the way general managers built their baseball teams. The name of the game became three-point shooting and very high percentage two-point shooting. Defenses that forced opponents to take lower percentage two-point shots became the new basis for determining effectiveness.

There was one other change that greatly affected the college game. When the shot clock moved from 35 to 30 seconds, it appeared on the surface that it would minimally affect the game by maybe two or three possessions per game. This was not the case. Defenses discovered that they could pressure the offense more and more in hopes that they would force a turnover or force the offense to escape the pressure to find a good shot. Many times, the pressure defense led to a hurried shot by the offense. Thus, teams that were patient all of a sudden saw their shooting percentages fall when good pressure defenses forced too many hurried shots. There was also the case where a defense that could keep the ball out of the close two-point range and force three-point shots to be taken a few feet farther back, could stop the patient offenses. What was the solution to these defenses? It was the return of Up-tempo basketball. Offenses began to try to hurry up their tempo to beat these gambling defenses or to get the preferred close in two-pointer or open looks an inch behind the line three-point line before defenses could organize. The newer up-tempo style of play brought back basketball from 40 years ago.

Once again, the teams that can get up and down the court in a hurry and do so without becoming sloppy in execution have begun to dominate the game. The patient offenses and non-pressuring defenses have found out that it is really hard to win consistently when the opponent is now finding a way to score 10 more points per game due to their new style of play.

On the other end of the spectrum, teams began to play more like the high schools in the Midwest. Players not equipped for the running and pressure defense games began to concentrate on playing incredible help defense, cramming the paint with defenders to stop dribble penetration. While some teams did this with man-to-man defense, otherwise known as the Pack-Line defense, some teams also accomplished this with zone defenses. Either way, the goal was to prevent easy inside shots while not gambling for steals or pressuring opponents into mistakes. Usually these teams paired this style of defense with a patient offense that valued each possession like gold and when they took a shot, two or more players retreated to stop any opponent transition. A lot of teams have done quite well during the regular season, but they have not been the best at winning four tournament games and getting to the Final Four. Loyola of Chicago beat the odds last year playing this way. Butler made it to the Championship Game twice with a semi-patient offense and non-gambling defense.

What did we do at the PiRate Ratings to combat our decline in effectiveness? The PiRates stripped our criteria down back to the basics. We felt like we were missing the obvious. In 2019, here are the Big Three stats that matter most when the NCAA Tournament begins play.

1. True Shooting Percentage Margin

2. R+T Rating

3. Schedule Strength

These three basic principles make up an overwhelming majority of how we will select our brackets when we release them Monday evening.

1. True Shooting Percentage Margin: this is the difference between a team’s offensive true shooting percentage and defensive true shooting percentage. For college basketball, true shooting percentage is:   (100*Pts)/[2*(fga+{.475*fta})].

2. R+T Rating: We hope most of you reading this today have some familiarity with our R+T Rating.

The formula for R+T is: (R * 2) + (S * .5) + (6 – Opp. S) + T
where, R = rebounding margin; S = Steals per game; and T= Turnover margin

3. Schedule Strength: It is obvious that a team could compile some very lofty True Shooting Percentages and R+T ratings playing the weakest 30 teams in the nation, while another team could compile some really awful stats playing the top 30 teams in the nation.

Don’t let these stats look intimidating. We would never force you, our patron, that we love so much to have to figure the offensive and defensive percentages for 68 teams. Do you know how long it takes to go to 68 different official athletic sites to get this information? We sure do! We will calculate this information for you and show you the stats for all 68 teams.

The first two data points must be weighted with the strength of schedule, and there is the rub. How much do we adjust the data from True Shooting Percentage Margin and R+T Rating to factor in schedule strength? We think we have the answer. Based on the fact that a certain schedule strength number has held consistent as the floor among past Final Four teams, we believe we know the cut-off points that will allow us to interpolate the winners of each round.

Obviously, it is not an exact science, but hey, nobody has ever picked a perfect bracket, and we hear that the chances of doing so are less than one person winning both the Power Ball and Mega Millions jackpots in the same week, while being struck two times by lightning on the way to collect from both the lottery offices.

The PiRates will reveal our entire bracket selections Monday evening.   And, after each round, we will then post an updated bracket selection for those people that play in contests where you can pick the winners round-by-round. Our goal is to try to pick the four Final Four participants and National Champion, so those of you in contests where you receive points for your accuracy, with more points awarded for each succeeding round, might have a somewhat unfair advantage over others in your pool.

We hope you return to this site after 7PM EDT on Monday night, March 18, to see what we believe will be an exciting and informative Bracketnomics 2019 exam. Yes, you too can earn your BM degree!

And, don’t forget to check our site out Sunday as our Bracket Gurus attempt to continue a history of incredible accuracy predicting the 68 teams to be selected for the NCAA Tournament.

We will publish one or two updates Sunday.  The first will be on this site before 10:00 AM EDT.  The final one will be published after all Sunday games but the Big Ten Tournament go final, or later if there is a chance this game will affect the bracket.

There will be an additional late Saturday night bracket update to include new automatic bid winners.

PiRate Ratings Bracketology For Friday, March 15, 2019

March 15, 2019
Seed	Team	Team	Team	Team
1	Virginia	Gonzaga	North Carolina	Duke
2	Kentucky	Michigan St.	Tennessee	LSU
3	Michigan	Purdue	Houston	Texas Tech
4	Florida St.	Wisconsin	Kansas	Kansas St.
5	Mississippi St.	Virginia Tech	Marquette	Nevada
6	Buffalo	Villanova	Maryland	Auburn
7	Wofford	Cincinnati	Iowa St.	Louisville
8	VCU	Iowa	Central Florida	Washington
9	Syracuse	Ole Miss	Baylor	Seton Hall
10	Minnesota	Oklahoma	Ohio St.	Utah St.
11	Temple	Arizona St.	North Carolina St.	TCU/Florida
12	St. John’s/Belmont	Saint Mary’s	Murray St.	New Mexico St.
13	Liberty	Vermont	UC-Irvine	Old Dominion
14	Montana	Northeastern	Northern Kentucky	Georgia St.
15	Yale	Bradley	Colgate	Gardner-Webb
16	Sam Houston St.	Prairie View	Iona/Fairleigh-Dickinson	North Dakota St./Norfolk St.

 

Last 4 Bye	Utah St.	Temple	Arizona St.	North Carolina St.
Last 4 In	TCU	Florida	St. John’s	Belmont

 

 

First 4 Out	Alabama	Clemson	Indiana	Furman
Next 4 Out	Nebraska	Texas	UNC Greensboro	Georgetown

 

Conference	Bids
ACC	8
Big Ten	8
SEC	7
Big 12	6
Big East	5
AAC	4
MWC	2
Pac-12	2
West Coast	2
Ohio Valley	2
One-Bid Leagues	22

 

Bid-Stealers Are Alive

There are numerous bid stealers alive in the Power Conference tournaments.

Memphis plays in the AAC Quarterfinals today where they host the tournament

Saint Louis, Dayton, and Davidson are still alive in the Atlantic 10

West Virginia is an upset of Kansas today away from making the Big 12 Finals

Xavier is in the Big East semifinals playing Villanova today

Nebraska is alive in the Big Ten and playing Wisconsin in today’s quarterfinals

Fresno St. and San Diego St.  both play in the Mountain West semifinals today

Oregon and Colorado look like game competitors in the Pac-12 semifinals today

South Carolina begins play in the SEC quarterfinals today, while Alabama must beat Kentucky to stay in the mix as one of the first teams out

PiRate Ratings Bracketology For Thursday, March 14, 2019

March 14, 2019
Seed	Team	Team	Team	Team
1	Virginia	Gonzaga	Kentucky	North Carolina
2	Duke	Michigan St.	Tennessee	LSU
3	Michigan	Texas Tech	Houston	Purdue
4	Florida St.	Wisconsin	Kansas	Kansas St.
5	Virginia Tech	Maryland	Mississippi St.	Nevada
6	Buffalo	Villanova	Marquette	Auburn
7	Wofford	Louisville	Cincinnati	Iowa St.
8	Baylor	VCU	Iowa	Ole Miss
9	Syracuse	Washington	Central Florida	Oklahoma
10	Minnesota	Seton Hall	TCU	Utah St.
11	Temple	Arizona St.	North Carolina St.	Ohio St./St. John’s
12	Florida/Creighton	Saint Mary’s	Murray St.	New Mexico St.
13	Liberty	Vermont	UC-Irvine	Old Dominion
14	Montana	Northeastern	Northern Kentucky	Georgia St.
15	Yale	Bradley	Colgate	Gardner-Webb
16	Sam Houston St.	Prairie View	Iona/Fairleigh-Dickinson	North Dakota St./Norfolk St.

Last 4 Bye	TCU	Temple	Arizona St.	North Carolina St.
Last 4 In	Ohio St.	St. John’s	Clemson	Florida

 

First 4 Out	Creighton	Indiana	Georgetown	Texas
Next 4 Out	Alabama	Belmont	Nebraska	UNC Greensboro

 

Conference	Bids
ACC	8
Big Ten	8
Big 12	7
SEC	7
Big East	5
AAC	4
MWC	2
Pac-12	2
West Coast	2
One-Bid Leagues	23

 

PiRate Ratings Bracketology For Wednesday, March 13, 2019

March 13, 2019
Seed	Team	Team	Team	Team
1	Virginia	Gonzaga	Kentucky	North Carolina
2	Duke	Michigan St.	Tennessee	LSU
3	Michigan	Texas Tech	Houston	Purdue
4	Florida St.	Wisconsin	Kansas	Kansas St.
5	Virginia Tech	Maryland	Mississippi St.	Nevada
6	Buffalo	Villanova	Marquette	Auburn
7	Wofford	Cincinnati	Louisville	Iowa St.
8	Baylor	VCU	Iowa	Ole Miss
9	Syracuse	Washington	Central Florida	Oklahoma
10	Minnesota	Seton Hall	Utah St.	TCU
11	Temple	Arizona St.	North Carolina St.	Ohio St./St. John’s
12	Florida/Clemson	Saint Mary’s	Murray St.	New Mexico St.
13	Liberty	Vermont	Old Dominion	UC-Irvine
14	Montana	Northeastern	Northern Kentucky	Georgia St.
15	Yale	Bradley	Bucknell	Gardner-Webb
16	Sam Houston St.	Prairie View	Iona/Fairleigh-Dickinson	North Dakota St./Norfolk St.

 

Last 4 Byes

TCU

Temple

Arizona St.

North Carolina St.

 

Last 4 In

Ohio St.

St. John’s

Clemson

Florida

 

First 4 Out

Creighton

Indiana

Georgetown

Texas

Next 4 Out

Alabama

Belmont

Nebraska

UNC Greensboro

 

Bids By Conference

Conference	Bids
ACC	9
Big Ten	8
Big 12	7
SEC	7
Big East	4
AAC	4
MWC	2
Pac-12	2
West Coast	2
One-Bid Leagues	23

 

Automatic Bids To Date

Team	Conf	W-L
Liberty	Atlantic Sun	28-6
Gardner-Webb	Big South	23-11
Murray St.	Ohio Valley	27-4
Bradley	Missouri Valley	20-14
Wofford	Southern	29-4
Iona	Metro Atlantic	17-15
Fairleigh-Dickinson	Northeast	20-13
Northern Kentucky	Horizon	26-8
Northeastern	Colonial	23-10
Saint Mary’s	West Coast	22-11
North Dakota St.	Summit	18-15

 

 

 

 

PiRate Ratings Bracketology For Tuesday, March 12, 2019

March 12, 2019
Seed	Team	Team	Team	Team
1	Gonzaga	Virginia	Kentucky	North Carolina
2	Duke	Michigan St.	Tennessee	LSU
3	Michigan	Texas Tech	Houston	Purdue
4	Florida St.	Wisconsin	Kansas	Kansas St.
5	Virginia Tech	Maryland	Mississippi St.	Nevada
6	Buffalo	Villanova	Marquette	Auburn
7	Wofford	Cincinnati	Louisville	Iowa St.
8	Baylor	VCU	Iowa	Ole Miss
9	Syracuse	Washington	Central Florida	Oklahoma
10	Minnesota	Seton Hall	Utah St.	TCU
11	Temple	Arizona St.	North Carolina St.	St. John’s
12	Ohio St./Clemson	Florida/Creighton	Murray St.	New Mexico St.
13	Liberty	Vermont	Hofstra	Old Dominion
14	UC-Irvine	Montana	Yale	Georgia St.
15	Bradley	Bucknell	Wright St.	Omaha
16	Sam Houston St.	Gardner-Webb	Norfolk St./St. Francis (PA)	Iona/Prairie View

 

Last 4 Byes

Temple

Arizona St.

North Carolina St.

St. John’s

 

Last 4 In–Destination Dayton

Ohio St.

Clemson

Florida

Creighton

 

First 4 Out

Indiana

Georgetown

Texas

Alabama

 

Next 4 Out

Saint Mary’s

Belmont

Nebraska

UNC Greensboro

 

Bids By Conference

Conference	Bids
ACC	9
Big Ten	8
Big 12	7
SEC	7
Big East	5
AAC	4
MWC	2
Pac-12	2
One-Bid Leagues	24

 

Bracketnomics 2019 Coming in 6 Days!

The PiRates can see dry land.  We are headed ashore and by this time tomorrow, we will be headed to our underground bunker, aka the moldy basement, to start putting together our war room similar to what we perceive to replicate the Selection Committee war room.

We will begin to gather advanced statistical information as more teams earn automatic bids, while other teams lose in their conference tournaments but have at-large worthy resumes.

Hopefully, we will have all 68 teams carefully graded and ready to publish the information by late Monday afternoon/early evening.

To familiarize yourself or introduce what Bracketnomics are, we use back-tested data of past NCAA Tournaments to isolate teams with statistics that in the past have shown to be the most important in the Big Dance, and then we try to select a Final Four and National Champion based on the data.

In past years, it has been very accurate, but in other years not so much.  We have hit on long shots like George Mason and had slam dunks when we picked one major power to wipe the floor with the other major powers when it was evident to us that the statistics showed one team superior to all others.

Usually, when we totally missed on a team, it was because we did not see the obvious and not that our system failed.  We failed by not seeing the data showing us what we should have seen.

Because we are quite fallible here in our bunker, we will give you all the statistics we use, so you can interpret it–probably better than us.  You know all that mold in the damp basement war room can cause cognitive issues, and being as old as fossils doesn’t help any.  Our captain this week was talking to us about how he remembers Gail Goodrich and Walt Hazzard in the 1964 Championship Game against the much taller Duke players.  That was 55 years ago, and he remembers that game better than the Saint Mary’s-San Diego game that ended just a few hours ago.

We will release the Bracketnomics Primer Sunday night for you to acquaint yourself with the details before the Monday statistical release.

 

 

 

 

PiRate Ratings Bracketology For Monday, March 11, 2019

March 11, 2019

Seed	Team	Team	Team	Team
1	Gonzaga	Virginia	Kentucky	North Carolina
2	Duke	Michigan St.	Tennessee	LSU
3	Michigan	Texas Tech	Houston	Purdue
4	Florida St.	Wisconsin	Kansas	Kansas St.
5	Virginia Tech	Maryland	Mississippi St.	Nevada
6	Buffalo	Villanova	Marquette	Auburn
7	Wofford	Cincinnati	Louisville	Iowa St.
8	Baylor	VCU	Iowa	Ole Miss
9	Syracuse	Washington	Central Florida	Oklahoma
10	Minnesota	Seton Hall	Utah St.	TCU
11	Temple	Arizona St.	North Carolina St.	St. John’s
12	Ohio St./Clemson	Florida/Creighton	Murray St.	New Mexico St.
13	Liberty	Vermont	Hofstra	Old Dominion
14	UC-Irvine	Montana	Yale	Georgia St.
15	Bradley	Bucknell	Sam Houston St.	Wright St.
16	Omaha	Gardner-Webb	Norfolk St./St. Francis (PA)	Iona/Prairie View

 

 

 

Last 4 Bye	Temple	Arizona St.	North Carolina St.	St. John’s
Last 4 In	Ohio St.	Clemson	Florida	Creighton

 

 

First 4 Out	Indiana	Georgetown	Texas	Alabama
Next 4 Out	UNC Greensboro	Belmont	Nebraska	Saint Mary’s

 

 

Bids By Conference	Bids
ACC	9
Big Ten	8
Big 12	7
SEC	7
Big East	5
AAC	4
MWC	2
Pac-12	2
One-Bid Leagues	24

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PiRate Ratings Bracketology For Sunday, March 10, 2019

March 10, 2019
Seed	Team	Team	Team	Team
1	Gonzaga	Virginia	Kentucky	North Carolina
2	Duke	Michigan St.	Tennessee	LSU
3	Purdue	Houston	Texas Tech	Michigan
4	Florida St.	Kansas	Kansas St.	Wisconsin
5	Virginia Tech	Maryland	Mississippi St.	Nevada
6	Buffalo	Cincinnati	Villanova	Marquestte
7	Wofford	Auburn	Louisville	Iowa
8	Baylor	Virginia Commonwealth	Iowa St.	Ole Miss
9	Syracuse	Washington	Central Florida	Oklahoma
10	Minnesota	Seton Hall	Utah St.	TCU
11	Ohio St.	Temple	Arizona St.	North Carolina St.
12	St. John’s/Clemson	Florida/Creighton	Lipscomb	Murray St.
13	New Mexico St.	Vermont	Hofstra	Old Dominion
14	UC-irvine	Montana	Yale	Georgia St.
15	Bradley	Bucknell	Radford	Wright St.
16	Omaha	Sam Houston St.	Norfolk St./St. Francis (PA)	Iona/Prairie View

Teams In Red Have Won Automatic Bids

 

Last 4 Byes

Ohio St.

Temple

Arizona St.

North Carolina St.

 

Last 4 In–Headed to First Four in Dayton

St. John’s

Florida

Clemson

Creighton

 

First Four Out

Georgetown

Furman

Indiana

Belmont

 

Next Four Out

UNC Greensboro

Texas

Nebraska

Saint Mary’s

 

Bids By Conference	Bids
ACC	9
Big Ten	8
Big 12	7
SEC	7
Big East	5
AAC	4
MWC	2
Pac-12	2
One-Bid Leagues	24

 

PiRate Ratings Bracketology For Saturday, March 9, 2019

March 9, 2019

Seed	Team	Team	Team	Team
1	Gonzaga	Duke	Virginia	Kentucky
2	Tennessee	Michigan	North Carolina	Michigan St.
3	LSU	Houston	Purdue	Texas Tech
4	Florida St.	Kansas	Wisconsin	Kansas St.
5	Virginia Tech	Marquette	Maryland	Mississippi St.
6	Villanova	Nevada	Buffalo	Cincinnati
7	Iowa St.	Louisville	Wofford	Auburn
8	Baylor	Syracuse	Iowa	Washington
9	Ole Miss	Central Florida	Oklahoma	St. John’s
10	Virginia Commonwealth	Florida	Minnesota	Ohio St.
11	Texas	Utah St.	Seton Hall	Temple
12	North Carolina St./TCU	Arizona St./Alabama	Belmont	Lipscomb
13	New Mexico St.	Old Dominion	Vermont	Hofstra
14	UC-irvine	South Dakota St.	Montana	Drake
15	Yale	Texas St.	Bucknell	Wright St.
16	Radford	Sam Houston St.	Norfolk St./St. Francis (PA)	Iona/Texas Southern

 

Last 4 Byes

Texas

Utah St.

Seton Hall

Temple

 

Last 4 In

North Carolina St.

Arizona St.

TCU

Alabama

 

First 4 Out

Clemson

Indiana

Furman

Georgetown

 

Next 4 Out

Murray St.

Nebraska

UNC Greensboro

Saint Mary’s

 

Bids By Conference	Bids
ACC	8
Big Ten	8
Big 12	8
SEC	8
AAC	4
Big East	4
MWC	2
Pac-12	2
One-Bid Leagues	24

 

Potential Bid Stealer Tonight

Belmont plays Murray State in the Ohio Valley Conference Championship Game tonight, and the winner will receive the first automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.  This should be a must-watch game for you if you go mad over March Madness.

Both teams enter this game sporting 26-4 records, and both teams have a star player that will make this game worth watching.  Murray’s Ja Morant is an NBA Lottery Pick.  The 6 foot 3 inch sophomore point guard has moved ahead of the injured Darius Garland as the top point guard on the draft board.  Morant averages 24.2 points per game with a John Stockton-like 10.3 assists per game.  He doesn’t just jack up a ton of shots every night either; he takes sensible shots rarely off-balance, and he can put a team on his back and win in the postseason, as last night’s nip and tuck semifinal game with Jacksonville State proved.  The Gamecocks made a furious second half comeback to take the lead late in the game, before Morant took over and put JSU away with a key three-point play the old-fashioned way.  He then supplied enough tight defense to force JSU’s last chance shot to be a low-percentage one.

Belmont is led by their swingman guard/forward.  Dylan Windler is a multi-tooled 6 foot 8 inch senior that has continued to improve during his four year stay in Nashville.  Windler put  up Elgin Baylor type numbers last night in Belmont’s semifinal win over Austin Peay.  The Governors actually led this game for a good part of the first half, but Windler was on fire while also being a beast on the boards.  When is the last time, a wing player scored 32 points and grabbed 21 rebounds in a Division 1 game?  Might it have been the Hall of Famer from Seattle University that starred for the Lakers for a dozen years?  Windler averages 21.5 points and 10.7 rebounds per game for Belmont.

Magic Johnson has been front and center at this tournament, and when he saw Windler play last night, he no doubt thought about his former rival with Indiana State and the Boston Celtics, as Windler drained eight three-pointers.  Windler, by the way, hails from the Sycamore State.  He projects as a D-League prospect at the present time, but he could work his way into a second-round selection with a couple more excellent outings on the national stage.

Which brings us to this:  Obviously, one of these two stars will be sad tonight after the other flashes a big smile knowing he is headed to the Big Dance.  Is there a chance that the loser might steal an at-large bid?

Belmont must be given some consideration if the Bruins lose a close game tonight.  At 26-4, they are currently sitting at #41 in the Net Ratings.  The Bruins are 13-3 away from the Curb Events Center, and they have two wins over rival Lipscomb plus a win at UCLA.  Among their four losses is a game at Purdue, where Belmont was in the game most of the day.  Purely mechanical, this Belmont team is probably better than Bubble teams like Arizona State, Alabama, Clemson, and TCU.  If Lipscomb holds off Liberty tomorrow in the Atlantic Sun Conference Championship; if Purdue wins the Big Ten Conference Tournament; and if UCLA advances to the Semifinals of the Pac-12 Tournament, Belmont’s resume might be good enough to sneak into the Dance with a trip to Dayton in the First Four.