Bracketology 2025

[bearcatbret]

Iowa State seed? This questions why ISU got their seed. Iowa State Cheated Their Way Into The NCAA Tournament

[Lobot]

Bracketmatrix grades are in. There were 249 submissions this year. None of them picked all 68 teams correctly thanks to West Virginia being left out.

Torvik's algorithm finished #10 overall and was the only one to place 66 teams within one seed line. That's incredible for an unsubjective, real time algorithm. There's really no reason to use anything else.

Notables:
#11 DeCourcy (Fox)
#19 Sluder (BearcatBunch)
#108 Lunardi (ESPN)
#233 Palm (CBS)

Another impressive year from Sluder, who was #12 in the 5 year average and will probably move up when the new average is tabulated. I don't understand why Palm still has the high profile job at CBS.

Palm's expertise was deciphering the old RPI formula. Now that they switched it up to Net and quartiles , he's lost.

[bearcatbret]

Just a summary of the Big 12 teams. https://www.heartlandcollegesports.c...NE8705kTzMoMAQ

[swilsonsp4]

Bracketmatrix grades are in. There were 249 submissions this year. None of them picked all 68 teams correctly thanks to West Virginia being left out.

Torvik's algorithm finished #10 overall and was the only one to place 66 teams within one seed line. That's incredible for an unsubjective, real time algorithm. There's really no reason to use anything else.

Notables:
#11 DeCourcy (Fox)
#19 Sluder (BearcatBunch)
#108 Lunardi (ESPN)
#233 Palm (CBS)

Another impressive year from Sluder, who was #12 in the 5 year average and will probably move up when the new average is tabulated. I don't understand why Palm still has the high profile job at CBS.

I imagine that CBS likes the # of clicks that he generates more than they care about Palm's prognostication abilities. If viewers turn him off, they'll find someone else.

Also, on a semi-related note, it's obvious that the Mountaineers opted out of the CBC because they knew Darian DeVries was as good as gone.

[sedz]

Bracketmatrix grades are in. There were 249 submissions this year. None of them picked all 68 teams correctly thanks to West Virginia being left out.

Torvik's algorithm finished #10 overall and was the only one to place 66 teams within one seed line. That's incredible for an unsubjective, real time algorithm. There's really no reason to use anything else.

Notables:
#11 DeCourcy (Fox)
#19 Sluder (BearcatBunch)
#108 Lunardi (ESPN)
#233 Palm (CBS)

Another impressive year from Sluder, who was #12 in the 5 year average and will probably move up when the new average is tabulated. I don't understand why Palm still has the high profile job at CBS.

[Lobot]

Thanks, this Crown tournament is new to me.

It's new to everyone. This is the first year it's been held.

[fmirzamd]

Thanks, this Crown tournament is new to me.

[Lobot]

Did UC get invited to NIT?

Not as far as I know but the BIg XII was contractually obligated to send two teams to the Crown and it was us and Oklahoma St. WVU declined. Just in looking at the field, there are some really bad teams in this tournament. The NIT has smaller schools in it but probably has a better competition level

[fmirzamd]

Did UC get invited to NIT?

[GoBearcats31]

UNC is in, which is a message that metrics matter more than Q1 wins.

Having your AD head the selection committee matters most

[fmirzamd]

I will go for X.

[bearcatbret]

Xavier Musketeers selected for First Four of 2025 March Madness I guess that I will cheer for Texas.

[sedz]

For evaluation:

	In	Out
Lunardi	SD St, Indiana, Xavier	Boise St, Texas, UNC
Palm	Indiana, SD St, Boise St	Xavier, Texas, UNC
Torvik	SD St, Texas, Xavier	Boise St, UNC, Indiana

Once again Torvik's real time algorithm outperforms the prominent "experts". Torvik only missed UNC. Lunardi missed UNC and Texas. Palm missed UNC, Texas, and Xavier. There's really no point in looking at them anymore. They're paid for interviews. Torvik even gives better insight on Twitter. He was defending UNC's resume multiple times in the last few days.

[sedz]

WAB ended up pretty accurate. It's something that can tell you in real time throughout the season how many wins you need against your schedule. No need to wait for bracketologists to tell you anything.

West Virginia was the only team 0.9 WAB or higher to miss the field. Xavier and Texas were the only teams under that mark to get in. Two more wins and we would have been above the line.

[sedz]

Sedz, knowing everything we know now - starting with the Kansas State home game, what is the worst you think we could've done down the stretch and still have grabbed a First Four spot?

I guess this is the key question!

Now that we know our lack of Q1 wins wasn't disqualifying (we ended up with 3, UNC and Xavier got in with 1), it was really our overall Q1/2 record and metrics that did us in. We were 10-15 in Q1/2 with no bad losses. X was 9-11 with no bad loss, UNC was 9-12 with one bad loss. So we were basically just one game behind those teams on the resume but with Kenpom ratings 12 spots below X and 22 lower than UNC. The other hole was road wins. We only won 5 Q1/2 games away from home, but X also only won 5 Q1/2 while UNC won 7.

After considering all of that, I think we were only 2 games behind Xavier. WAB shows that too. We finished -1.0 WAB. Xavier was 0.4. Flip two of our losses to wins and we pass Xavier (and Texas and San Diego St). So win the final two regular season games and we are probably playing in Dayton.