PiRate Ratings NCAA Tournament For Wednesday, March 20, 2019

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Rating

HCA

Visitor

Rating

Spread

North Carolina Central	97.2	0.0	North Dakota St.	97.9	-0.7
St. John’s	106.2	0.0	Arizona St.	107.9	-1.7

Schedule

Both Games on Tru TV

6:40 PM EDT

16- North Carolina Central vs. 16- North Dakota St.

30 Minutes After the Conclusion of the First Game

(approximately 9:15 PM EDT)

11-Arizona State vs. 11-St. John’s

 

Thursday’s Schedule

Time	Game	TV	Location
12:15 p.m.	(10) Minnesota vs. (7) Louisville	CBS	Des Moines
12:40 p.m.	(14) Yale vs. (3) LSU	truTV	Jacksonville
1:30 p.m.	(12) New Mexico St. vs. (5) Auburn	TNT	Salt Lake City
2 p.m.	(13) Vermont vs. (4) Florida St.	TBS	Hartford
Approx. 2:30 PM	(15) Bradley vs. (2) Michigan St.	CBS	Des Moines
Approx. 2:55 PM	(11) Belmont vs. (6) Maryland	truTV	Jacksonville
Approx. 3:45 PM	(13) Northeastern vs. (4) Kansas	TNT	Salt Lake City
Approx. 4:15 PM	(12) Murray St. vs. (5) Marquette	TBS	Hartford
6:50 p.m.	(10) Florida vs. (7) Nevada	TNT	Des Moines
7:10 p.m.	(15) Abilene Christian vs. (2) Kentucky	CBS	Jacksonville
7:20 p.m.	(11) Saint Mary’s vs. (6) Villanova	TBS	Hartford
7:27 p.m.	(16) Fairleigh-Dickinson vs. (1) Gonzaga	truTV	Salt Lake City
Approx. 9:20 PM	(15) Montana vs. (2) Michigan	TNT	Des Moines
Approx. 9:40 PM	(10) Seton Hall vs. (7) Wofford	CBS	Jacksonville
Approx. 9:50 PM	(14) Old Dominion vs. (3) Purdue	TBS	Hartford
Approx. 9:57 PM	(9) Baylor vs. (8) Syracuse	truTV	Salt Lake City

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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PiRate Ratings NCAA Tournament For Tuesday, March 19, 2019

Home	Rating	HCA	Visitor	Rating	Spread
Prairie View A&M	96.9	0.0	Fairleigh-Dickinson	97.2	-0.3
Temple	106.5	0.0	Belmont	109.3	-2.8

 

Tonight’s Schedule

Both Games on Tru TV

7:40 PM EDT

16 Prairie View A&M   vs. 16 Fairleigh-Dickinson  

30 Minutes After the Conclusion of First Game (approx. 10:00 to 10:15 EDT)

11 Belmont   vs. 11 Temple  

 

Coming Later Today

The Captain picks his Bracket using Bracketnomics.

 

PiRate Ratings FINAL Bracketology For 2019

Sunday, March 17, 2019

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

 

Last Four Byes

Virginia Commonwealth

Florida

Oklahoma

Ohio St.

 

Last Four In

Temple

St. John’s

TCU

Arizona St.

 

First Four Out

North Carolina St.

Belmont

UNC Greensboro

Furman

 

Next Four Out

Indiana

Alabama

Clemson

Texas

 

Bids By Conference

Conference	Bids
Big Ten	8
ACC	7
SEC	7
Big 12	7
Big East	4
AAC	4
Pac-12	3
MWC	2
West Coast	2
Atlantic 10	2
One-Bid Leagues	22

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.

Bracket Gurus Breakfast Meeting

The Bubble Has Deflated

Good Morning PiRate Supporters.

This is the Captain writing this morning, as our sleepy Bracket Gurus try to wipe the sleep out of our eyes and begin perusing all the numbers.

One good thing about sleeping 3-4 hours a night for almost a fortnight is there isn’t much time to develop the junk that one must wipe out of his or her eyes.

If you have been following PiRate Ratings Bracketology prior to today, what you saw on this website was one person’s (moi) prediction as to what the NCAA Men’s Basketball Selection Committee would choose for the final bracket.

Beginning this morning, I step aside as sole Bracketologist to become one of multiple Bracket Gurus.  I have selected an excellent group of qualified experts to help interpret the criteria used by the Selection Committee to attempt to replicate what the actual Committee has been doing for the last five days.

Our Gurus include members of the sports media, a couple with former basketball coaching experience, a mathematics professor, a sports handicapper, and a basketball savant that can tell you exactly how many points Charlie Scott scored in the three games when North Carolina won the December 1967 Far West Classic.

Our Gurus have done an incredible job already this morning.  They have culled the field down to 69 teams.  Basically, three teams remain in consideration for the final two spots in the field.  Early this afternoon, we will reveal our 68 teams that we predict will make the field, and then following the Big Ten Championship Game (or earlier if the game is no longer in doubt), we will reveal our final Bracketology seeding.

Check back around 2PM Eastern Time today for our Final 68, and then sneak a peak here once the Michigan State-Michigan winner is known to see our final prediction.

 

Bracketnomics in Less Than 36 Hours

Once the field of 68 is announced, we begin perusing all the stats from all 68 teams.  We look at each school’s official athletic site to get their official cumulative box for the season, and then we add our own touches to help you select your brackets for your pools.

Our system is unique, and we have back-tested data that helps us isolate the contenders from the pretenders.  If you haven’t taken a look, here is the primer that will help you earn your online Bachelor of Madness Degree.

https://piratings.wordpress.com/2019/03/16/bracketnomics-2019/

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