Franketology: January 21, 2025

There comes a time in every man’s life when he needs to make a stand. I have reached that point. What is my stand you may ask? No more teams with 0 Q1 wins will be in my bracket. It’s almost half-way through conference seasons, if you don’t have a Q1 win yet, you’re not yet worthy of a bid. Period. Full stop.

Looking at you Maryland, currently a 9 in Bracket Matrix. Looking at you SMU and Iowa (both in my “Next Four Out”) and Cincy (12th team out) and North Texas (13th team out), Florida St. (14th team out) and Bradley (15th team out) an San Fran. And I take no position on whether these teams will do it. For instance, Torvik currently projects Maryland to finish with 4 Q1 wins, which would almost certainly put them in the field.

As for the Big East, we’re still on 4-teams:

2 Marquette
6 St. John’s
7 UConn
9 Creighton

The bracket is once again not kind to mid-majors, just 3 mid-major leagues getting multiple bids: Big West, MWC & WCC, as St. Mary’s has re-entered the field. However, UC Irvine has done enough to sneak in right now, and they needed it because I do my auto-bids based on the highest predictive metrics average among teams in the conference, and for the Big West, that turned out to be UCSD. So my method naturally created a bid thief in UC San Diego.

Something I am passionate about as well is my method. As I’ve said, based on what I saw from the committee last year, Resume Metrics and Quad Wins are my biggest determining factor in making selections. Predictive metrics and SOS of course also come into play.

From there, once I have my field of 68, I start at the bottom and rank the auto-qualifiers, then I come back to the top using predominantly the predictive metrics average, but also referencing back to the results metrics and the quad victories and SOS. The result is that I might here things to the effect of “Oregon is only 22 in NET & 25 in KenPom, why are they a 2-seed?! Well they have the 2nd most Q1 wins in the country behind Auburn, which overcomes their 28.33 predictive metrics average.

On the flip side “how is Memphis a 7, they have so many good wins?” Well their predictive metrics average is 41.33, which would indicate an 11 seed, so they’ve actually been adjusted up 4 seed lines from their “default” using the predictives averages of selected teams. Their quantity of Q1 wins, and their percentage (a 5-2 record in Q1, good for .714 win%) differentiates them from Pitt, who has a predictive metrics average of 38, very similar to Memphis’ 41, but Pitt is only seeded last four in, heading to Dayton while Memphis is a 7-seed. The difference is the Memphis quantity (5 v. 2) and quality (12.67 resume metrics average vs. 42) of Q1 wins.

With that out of the way, here’s the rest of it:

Direct link to the spreadsheet above

TEXT-ONLY
NCAA TOURNAMENT
SEED LIST

Breakdown By League

SEC - 13
B1G - 8
Big12 - 8
ACC - 5
Big East - 4
MWC - 3
Big West - 2
WCC - 2

Last Four Byes

UCF
Texas
Vanderbilt
Indiana

Last Four In

Pitt
UNC
UC Irvine
New Mexico

First Four Out

Wake Forest
Maryland
Nebrasketball
Washington St.

Second Four Out

Arizona St.
SMU
Iowa
Ohio St.

1 Seeds
Auburn
Duke
Iowa St.
Alabama

2 Seeds
Tennessee
Marquette
Oregon
Florida

3 Seeds
Houston
Kansas
Kentucky
Ole Miss

4 Seeds
Illinois
Purdue
Arizona
Michigan St.

5 Seeds
Mississippi St.
Texas A&M
Texas Tech
Michigan

6 Seeds
Gonzaga
Wisconsin
St. John’s
Baylor

7 Seeds
UConn
West Virginia
Memphis
Missouri

8 Seeds
Clemson
Georgia
Louisville
San Diego St.

9 Seeds
Oklahoma
Utah St.
UCLA
Creighton

10 Seeds
St. Mary’s
UCF
Texas
Vanderbilt

11 Seeds
Indiana
Pittsburgh (Play-In)
UNC (Play-In)
UC Irvine (Play-In)
New Mexico (Play-In)
Drake*

12 Seeds
VCU
McNeese
UC San Diego
Liberty

13 Seeds
Yale
Arkansas St.
Lipscomb
Grand Canyon

14 Seeds
High Point
Samford
North Dakota St.
Northern Colorado

15 Seeds
Akron
UNCW
Purdue Fort Wayne
Norfolk St.

16 Seeds
Bryant
Southern
Quinnipiac (Play-In)
Merrimack (Play-In)
Little Rock (Play-In)
Colgate (Play-In)

NIT Bracketology

Fuck it, why the hell not, go Sicko mode and do NIT bracketology. This year the NIT is awarding “exempt” bids to the top team in each of the top-12 conferences (as ranked by KenPom) that did not receive a bid to the Big Dance. Because of ESPN tie-ins the ACC and SEC get an extra bid each. The best team in each conference will be determined by the average of all Team Sheet metrics (NET, KPI, SOR, WAB, BPI, KenPom & Torvik). Exempt bids are guaranteed to host a first round game (i.e. guaranteed a top-4 seed). Exempt bids noted with an carrot. There are also auto bids for regular season champions of leagues who did not win their conference tournament, provided that program ranks in the top 125 of the average of all Team Sheet metrics. Auto-bids noted with an asterisk. Without further ado:

Breakdown by Conference

B1G - 7
Big12 - 5
ACC - 4
Big East - 3
WCC - 3
A10 - 2
SEC - 2
AAC - 1
CAA - 1
CUSA - 1
Big West - 1
MVC - 1
MWC - 1

First Four Out of NIT

Oregon St.
St. Bonaventure
Rutgers
Colorado St.

Next Four Out of NIT

UNLV
Nevada
South Carolina
Washington

NIT 1 Seeds
Maryland^
SMU^
Nebrasketball
Cincy^

NIT 2 Seeds
Ohio St.
Xavier^
Wake Forest^
Arkansas^

NIT 3 Seeds
North Texas^
Boise St.^
Bradley^
LSU^

NIT 4 Seeds
San Francisco^
Dayton^
Middle Tenn^
CSU-Northridge^

NIT 5 Seeds
Iowa
Arizona St.
Washington St.
College of Charleston*

NIT 6 Seeds
Northwestern
BYU
Penn St.
Florida St.

NIT 7 Seeds
USC
TCU
Utah
Santa Clara

NIT 8 Seeds
Villanova
Georgetown
Stanford
George Mason

Additionally, as a disclaimer, I wouldn’t take the NIT seeding to be a measure of how far your team is away from the tournament. I just went straight down the list of “All Metrics Average” to seed my NIT bracket. One of my First Four Out, Washington St., is a 5-seed because San Francisco qualified for the exempt-bid out of the WCC. That said, I think this NIT bracket mostly reflects the next 32-best teams after my bracket above, so I am comfortable saying that any team that does not appear on this page in some capacity (NIT or NCAAT), is highly, highly unlikely to get a bid at this point.