Franketology: February 10, 2025
Good news: my illness is gone. Bad news: you’re gonna get some rambling before my bracket…
This week, let’s discuss the bubble. Man, it is WILD down there. Teams once thought relatively safe are falling onto the bubble, teams coming back from the dead—Arkansas?! …KANSAS STATE?!?!?!—and a whole bunch of resumes that look very similar. Let’s look at some blind profiles of the last 4 in and first 4 out:
Team 1 (Ark) - resume metrics avg 44.33; predictive metrics avg 49.67; 4 wins vs. at-large teams; 3-5 Q1A; 3-7 Q1; 4-9 Q1&2
Team 2 (BYU) - 55.67 / 32.33 / 1 / 0-4 / 2-5 / 5-8
Team 3 (UCI) - 46.33 / 84.33 / 0 / 0-0 / 1-1 / 4-2
Team 4 (UNC) - 48.33 / 40.33 / 1 / 1-7 / 1-9 / 6-9
Team 5 (SDSU) - 43.00 / 53.67 / 2 / 1-2 / 3-3 / 5-5
Team 6 (Vandy) - 38.00 / 47.67 / 3 / 1-3 / 2-5 / 6-6
Team7 (Wake) - 32.33 / 66.33 / 1 / 1-5 / 1-6 / 6-6
Team 8 (UCF) - 52.00 / 64.67 / 2 / 2-7 / 3-7 / 3-10
Not a ton of differentiation there. Picking the 4 best teams from that list is an entirely subjective exercise in what you value. Q1 Ws, well that’s obviously Team 8. Q1 win percentage? Teams 3 & 5 are your bag. Resume metrics? Teams 6 & 7 are your top choices. Predictive metrics? Well that’s teams 2 and 4. Q1&2 wins? Look at teams 4, 6, & 7. Wins against the field? Teams 1 & 6.
And this exercise underscores the insanity of bracketology. The term of a committee member lasts 5 years, and they rotate in and out in a fashion that there’s always some level of continuity. So we are trying to predict what a disparate group of 12 individuals, all of whom may value different things, are going to emphasize when they review these resumes. We can make our best guesses based on what past committees have done, but that’s never a great indicator. For my money, if I were a committee member, I’d emphasize quality wins. For me, it’s hard to separate that from what I think the committee will do, so my brackets tend to skew towards big wins. And so among these teams I took, in order, Team 1 (Arkansas), Team 6 (Vandy), and Team 5 (SDSU), leaving me one team short. After that, the best remaining resume metric was Team 7 at 32.33. And even though team 8 has more Q1 wins and wins against the field, Team 7 has a significantly better Q1&2 win%, as Team 8 is 0-3 in Q2. Therefore, I went with Team 7 (Wake Forest). The first four out are Team 2 (BYU), Team 8 (UCF), Team4 (UNC) and Team 3 (UCI). UCI is probably a pipe dream, as they will enter Selection Sunday with 0 wins against the at-large field, but the resume metrics (46.33) are close enough to say “maybe”.
So where does that leave us? Well…I dunno. Just that this process isn’t easy, and it isn’t rote. It is performed by human beings doing their best to balance a bunch of competing factors, and predicting how a group of humans will balance these factors year-to-year naturally involves some (educated) guessing. Keep that in mind as we enter the stretch run of this regular season.
With that out of the way, let’s get to the current Franketology bracket:
Auburn
Alabama
Duke
Tennessee
Florida
Purdue
Iowa St.
Houston
Arizona
Texas Tech
Texas A&M
Wisconsin
Michigan St.
Kansas
Michigan
Kentucky
Marquette
Illinois
Maryland
St. John’s
Oregon
UCLA
Missouri
Ole Miss
Mississippi St.
Baylor
Creighton
Clemson
Saint Mary’s
Memphis
UConn
Louisville
Gonzaga
Ohio St.
Nebraska
West Virginia
New Mexico
LAST FOUR BYES
Utah St.
Texas
Oklahoma
Georgia
LAST FOUR IN
Arkansas
Vanderbilt
San Diego St.
Wake Forest
VCU
UC San Diego
Drake
Arkansas St.
McNeese St.
Yale
Grand Canyon
Liberty
Akron
Samford
High Point
Lipscomb
S. Dakota St.
UNCW
No. Colorado
Bryant
Norfolk St.
Purdue Fort Wayne
CCSU
Southern U
Quinnipiac
Little Rock
Bucknell
And fuck it, I’ve got nothing better to do, let’s get to NIT Bracketology!
NIT SEEDS
1 Seeds
BYU
UNC
SMU
Boise St.
2 Seeds
George Mason
USC
Xavier
San Francisco
3 Seeds
UC Irvine
North Texas
LSU
Bradley
4 Seeds
South Carolina
Jacksonville St.
Utah Valley
Chattanooga
5 Seeds
UCF
Pittsburgh
Indiana
Cincy
6 Seeds
Arizona St.
Kansas St.
Villanova
Northwestern
7 Seeds
Santa Clara
Iowa
Rutgers
TCU
8 Seeds
Dayton
Stanford
Colo. St.
Col. of Charleston