Final NCAA Tournament Projections 2007

I’m going to save further analysis until I have sufficient time to address why I have certain teams in the tournament and why I don’t. I just returned from the Big Ten Tournament (did not stay for the Championship game) so I am a bit pressed for time.

My tournament projections are based on putting in the teams that deserve to be in the tournament regardless of conference affiliation and/or mid-major/major status. The Selection Committee did a horrific job last season so I will no longer try to guess what it is going to do. If I picked teams based on which teams I think the Committee will put in, I would have to intentionally pick teams that I don’t feel deserve a bid since that seems to be what the Committee does. Here is how I view the field right now (in no particular order):


1 ACC North Carolina
2 SEC Florida
3 Big East Georgetown
4 Big 12 Kansas
5 Big Ten Ohio St.
6 Pac-10 Oregon
7 MVC Creighton
8 MWC UNLV
9 WAC New Mexico St.
10 A-10 George Washington
11 Colonial VCU
12 MAC Miami (OH)
13 WCC Gonzaga
14 C-USA Memphis
15 Sun Belt North Texas
16 Horizon Wright St.
17 MAAC Niagara
18 Big Sky Weber St.
19 MCC Oral Roberts
20 Big West Long Beach St.
21 OVC Eastern Kentucky
22 Ivy Penn
23 Southern Davidson
24 Patriot Holy Cross
25 Southland Texas A&M Corpus Christi
26 Northeast Central Connecticut St.
27 AEC Albany
28 Big South Winthrop
29 Atl. Sun Belmont
30 SWAC Jackson St.
31 MEAC Delaware St.
32 At-Large Maryland
33 At-Large Duke
34 At-Large Boston College
35 At-Large Georgia Tech
36 At-Large Virginia
37 At-Large Virginia Tech
38 At-Large Tennessee
39 At-Large Kentucky
40 At-Large Vanderbilt
41 At-Large Butler
42 At-Large S. Illinois
43 At-Large Michigan St.
44 At-Large Wisconsin
45 At-Large Indiana
46 At-Large Illinois
47 At-Large Purdue
48 At-Large USC
49 At-Large Arizona
50 At-Large UCLA
51 At-Large Washington St.
52 At-Large Stanford
53 At-Large BYU
54 At-Large Xavier
55 At-Large Nevada
56 At-Large Old Dominion
57 At-Large Syracuse
58 At-Large Villanova
59 At-Large Marquette
60 At-Large Louisville
61 At-Large Notre Dame
62 At-Large Pittsburgh
63 At-Large Texas Tech
64 At-Large Texas A&M
65 At-Large Texas



The Last Five “Out” (in no particular order)

1). Air Force
2). Kansas St.
3). Drexel
4). Missouri St.
5). West Virginia


The Stanford Dilemma

The Selection Committee will have a dilemma on its hands with Stanford. The Cardinal went 4-6 in its last ten games including a 1-4 stretch to end the season. However, its last two losses were against USC and Arizona in overtime so it’s not as if Stanford had been playing poorly. Also, few teams in college basketball can even come close to matching Stanford’s quality of wins this year. Here is a list of the teams that Stanford beat along with the RPI of those teams (all of which are likely at-large selections):

#2 UCLA
#21 Oregon
#26 Washington St.
#40 USC
#53 Texas Tech
#54 Virginia

Combine those wins with the fact that a) Stanford finished 10-8 in a stacked Pac-10 and, more importantly, Stanford didn’t lose a single game this season to a team outside of the RPI100. In my opinion, there is no way any one of the five “out” teams above can compete with Stanford’s resume. Although, I am skeptical of the Selection Committee’s ability to figure this out. There already seems to be a collective agreement among the “experts” that Stanford is “out”. That would be ridiculous, IMO.

The # 1’s and #2’s

I don’t want to get too much into guessing the seeds for the tournament but, I’ll give you the number one seeds as I see them.

#1’s:

Ohio St.
Florida
UCLA
North Carolina

#2’s:

Kansas
Wisconsin
Georgetown
Memphis


Highest rated RPI teams projected “out” of the tournament

#30 Air Force
#35 Arkansas
#36 Missouri St.
#38 Bradley
#41 Florida St.
#43 Drexel
#45 Utah St.
#46 Clemson
#48 Alabama
#49 Oklahoma St.

Lowest rated RPI teams projected “in” the tournament as at-large selections

#65 Stanford
#54 Virginia
#53 Texas Tech
#53 Georgia Tech
#51 Syracuse
#47 Vanderbilt
#44 Purdue
#40 USC
#39 Old Dominion
#37 Louisville



Here is a breakdown of conferences with multiple bids (in no particular order):

ACC (7)

UNC
Duke
BC
Virginia
Va. Tech
Maryland
Ga. Tech

Big East (7)

Pittsburgh
Villanova
Marquette
Notre Dame
Georgetown
Louisville
Syracuse

SEC (4)

Florida
Tennessee
Kentucky
Vanderbilt

Pac-10 (6)

UCLA
Arizona
Oregon
WSU
USC
Stanford

Big XII (4)

Kansas
Texas Tech
Texas A&M
Texas

Big Ten (6)

Wisconsin
Ohio State
Indiana
Purdue
Illinois
Michigan St.

MVC (2)

S. Illinois
Creighton

MWC (2)

UNLV
BYU

CAA (2)

VCU
Old Dominion