PiRate Ratings College Basketball Spreads

February 16, 2021

Home	Visitor	Spread
Rhode Island	Dayton	3.1
Saint Louis	La Salle	14.1
Tulsa	Temple	3.9
Oklahoma St.	Iowa St.	12.0
Connecticut	Providence	4.4
St. John’s	Xavier	0.3
Maryland	Nebraska	8.9
Purdue	Michigan St.	6.3
Illinois	Northwestern	11.8
Georgia	Missouri	-3.6
Arkansas	Florida	2.8
Santa Clara	Loyola Marymount	-0.7

PiRate Ratings College Basketball Spreads

Tuesday, February 9, 2021

Home	Visitor	Spread
Duke	Notre Dame	4.5
St. Bonaventure	LaSalle	12.2
Richmond	George Washington	14.3
Dayton	VCU	-1.8
San Francisco	Pepperdine	4.9
South Carolina	Alabama	-9.9
NC St.	Syracuse	-0.1
Michigan St.	Penn St.	-1.5
Kentucky	Arkansas	-2.3
Kansas St.	Texas	-16.6
Vanderbilt	Auburn	-6.4
Texas Tech	West Virginia	1.8
Georgetown	Creighton	-7.4
Butler	St. John’s	-3.4
TCU	Iowa St.	3.9
Colorado St.	New Mexico	16.7

PiRate Ratings Bracketology

Date	2/8/2021
Seed	Team	Team	Team	Team	Team	Team
1	Baylor	Gonzaga	Michigan	Villanova
2	Houston	Ohio St.	Illinois	Missouri
3	Virginia	Oklahoma	Texas Tech	Alabama
4	Texas	Iowa	Virginia Tech	West Virginia
5	Wisconsin	Tennessee	Creighton	Purdue
6	Florida St.	Oklahoma St.	Florida	USC
7	Louisville	UCLA	Xavier	Rutgers
8	Oregon	Colorado	Minnesota	Kansas
9	Clemson	BYU	North Carolina	Drake
10	Indiana	Colorado St.	San Diego St.	St. Bonaventure
11	Arkansas	Loyola (Chi.)	LSU	Stanford
12	Toledo	Belmont	Boise St.	Connecticut	Utah St.	Richmond
13	Winthrop	UNCG	UAB	Stephen F. Austin
14	Texas St.	South Dakota	Liberty	Siena
15	UC-Irvine	Cleveland St.	Grand Canyon	Navy
16	UMBC	Northeastern	Bryant	Southern Utah	N. C. A&T	Prairie View

Bubble

VCU

Seton Hall

Saint Louis

SMU

Maryland

St. John’s

Syracuse

Western Ky.

PiRate Ratings College Basketball For January 28, 2020

Tuesday’s Games

 

Home	Visitor	Spread
St. John’s	Villanova	-2.1
Tennessee	Texas A&M	12.4
Virginia	Florida St.	-1.5
Florida	Mississippi St.	5.1
Cincinnati	SMU	6.2
VCU	Richmond	4.1
George Mason	Rhode Island	-5.4
Akron	Buffalo	9.5
Toledo	Kent St.	2.9
Clemson	Syracuse	1.3
Nebraska	Michigan	-6.2
Miami (O)	Central Michigan	0.7
Bowling Green	Ball St.	-0.9
Rutgers	Purdue	3.0
Miami	Virginia Tech	-1.0
Northern Illinois	Ohio	5.0
Missouri	Georgia	3.9
Duke	Pittsburgh	18.3
Georgetown	Butler	-0.7
Ole Miss	Auburn	-5.0
Air Force	Fresno St.	1.8
Wyoming	Utah St.	-13.6

 

Tuesday’s Best Games On TV

 

Tonight’s small slate of games features a couple of key contests where teams are

jostling for NCAA Tournament berths.  The top game of the night is an inner-city

battle between Virginia Commonwealth and Richmond, two Atlantic 10 rivals

separated by just five miles and a half dozen monuments.

 

If St. John’s has any idea of getting back on the Bubble for a potential NCAA

Tournament at-large bid the Red Storm needs to upset Villanova tonight at Madison

Square Garden.  St. John’s has dropped six of their last eight games.

 

Could it be that last year’s National Champion misses out on an NCAA Tournament

bid?  Virginia is hanging on by a thread in the at-large wars, as the Cavaliers might

become the first champion in five years not to make the Big Dance the next season.

UVA is 5-4 in the ACC and 13-6 overall with a couple of good wins, but multiple bad

losses.  A win tonight over a tough Florida State team could put the Cavs back above

the midpoint of the Bubble, but the Seminoles are competing for a number one

seed, and a road win in the ACC could strengthen that chance.

 

The Big Ten is the strongest conference in the nation today, and when 12 teams in

one league are competing for probably 10 bids, every game is vital.  Purdue is in

10th place in the Big Ten at 4-5/11-9, but the Boilermakers are in contention for an

at-large bid.  Rutgers is in great shape, as the Scarlet Knights are enjoying their best

season since Phil Sellers, Eddie Jordan, and Hollis Copeland made RU basketball the

most exciting event in the Metro NY-NJ area.  This year’s RU team sits at 6-3 in the

Big Ten, good enough for a tie for third and just one game behind the co-leaders.

 

At 2-5/12-8, Georgetown has moved far down the Bubble and is currently an NIT

team from the Big East.  If the tournament started today, five Big East Teams would

have invitations.  Butler 4-3/16-4 would be one of those five.  The Hoyas need a big

win over the Bulldogs tonight.

 

Time (EST)	Network	Home	Visitor
6:30 PM	FS1	St. John’s	Villanova
7:00 PM	ESPN	Virginia	Florida St.
7:00 PM	CBSSN	Va. Commonwealth	Richmond
8:00 PM	BigTen	Rutgers	Purdue
9:00 PM	CBSSN	Georgetown	Butler

 

 

PiRate Ratings College Basketball For January 5, 2020

Power Conference & Top 25 Teams Playing Sunday

 

Home	Visitor	Spread
Saint Joseph’s	Dayton	-18.6
Michigan St.	Michigan	7.4
Xavier	St. John’s	6.9
Colorado	Oregon St.	8.5
Minnesota	Northwestern	11.0
Illinois	Purdue	-0.2
Washington	USC	4.3

PiRate Ratings NCAA Tournament For Wednesday, March 20, 2019

Home

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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