First 2017 March Madness Bracket Projection

Now that the Steelers season is in the books (I’m still working on my Season Wrap-Up post but you can enjoy my GIF-cap of the season in the mean time), I’m starting to move into off-season mode. While I’ll be delving into draft research and analyzing the Steelers Salary Cap situation, I’ll also be switching gears a bit into the realm of College Basketball Bracketology. If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you’ll know that I stack up decently well against the Experts in The Bracket Matrix. Bracket predictions are “scored” using the Paymon method where 3 points are given for correctly predicting a team in the field, 2 points for seeding a team correctly and 1 point for seeding them within 1 line of their actual seed. Therefore, a team seeded correctly earns 6 points, a team seeded within 1 line receives 4 and a team in the field but seeded 2 or more lines away receives 3. The maximum Paymon score for a 68-team field is 408. Last year, Delphi Bracketology (a high school bracket club) had the highest score ever recorded on the Matrix at 351.

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Bracketology is both an art and a science – it’s the ability to look at the resumes of 70+ teams and decide which teams should be “in” and “out” of the field, not based on what I think, but based on the historical trends of the Selection Committee. Predicting what the Committee will do is often a difficult venture (see: Tulsa getting in last year) but that’s the fun and the challenge. I’ll be updating my bracket projection at least once a week from here until Selection Sunday and including some analytical posts delving deeper into the science of Bracketology. I also wrote a Bracketology 101 post to give some baseline for how the Committee develops the bracket.

For now, here is my first bracket projection of the 2016-2017 College Basketball Season. (Current conference leaders are presumed as conference champions and appear in bold.)

Midwest Region

Tulsa
1. Baylor vs 16. Weber St
8. Northwestern vs 9. Seton Hall

Salt Lake City
4. Oregon vs 13. Monmouth
5. Notre Dame vs 12. New Mexico St

Greenville
3. Kentucky vs 14. Florida Gulf Coast
6. Marquette vs 11. NC State/Kansas St

Indianapolis
2. Louisville vs 15. Princeton
7. USC vs 10. Indiana

East Region

Buffalo
1. Villanova vs 16. Fairleigh Dickinson/Morgan St
8. St Mary’s vs 9. Ohio State

Orlando
4. Virginia vs 13. Akron
5. Maryland vs 12. UNC-Wilmington

Milwaukee
3. Cincinnati vs 14. UNC-Greensboro
6. South Carolina vs 11. Dayton

Tulsa
2. Kansas vs 15. Georgia Southern
7. Xavier vs 10. Georgia Tech

South Region

Orlando
1. Florida St vs 16. Texas Southern
8. TCU vs 9. Michigan

Sacramento
4. UCLA vs 13. Winthrop
5. Wisconsin vs 12. Nevada

Buffalo
3. West Virginia vs 14. Bucknell
6. Florida vs 11. Michigan St/Pitt

Indianapolis
2. Butler vs 15. Vermont
7. Virginia Tech vs 10. Arkansas

West Region

Greenville
1. North Carolina vs 16. New Orleans/UC-Irvine
8. SMU vs 9. Iowa St

Milwaukee
4. Creighton vs 13. Valparaiso
5. Purdue vs 12. Illinois St

Salt Lake City
3. Arizona vs 14. North Dakota St
6. Duke vs 11. Middle Tennessee St

Sacramento
2. Gonzaga vs 15. Belmont
7. Minnesota vs 10. Tennessee

Play-In Games (Tuesday in Dayton)
Michigan St vs Pitt (winner to Buffalo)
Fairleigh Dickinson vs Morgan St (winner to Buffalo)

Play-In Games (Wednesday in Dayton)
NC State vs Kansas St (winner to Greenville)
New Orleans vs UC-Irvine (winner to Greenville)

Conference Breakdown: ACC – 10, Big Ten – 9, Big XII – 6, Big East – 6, SEC – 5, Pac-12 – 4, American – 2, West Coast – 2

Last 4 Byes: Arkansas, Indiana, Georgia Tech, Tennessee, (Middle Tennessee), (Dayton)

Last 4 IN: Michigan St, Pitt, NC State, Kansas St

First 4 OUT: Clemson, Texas Tech, Oklahoma St, Illinois

Next 4 OUT: VCU, Miami, Wake Forest, Georgia

Others Considered: Georgetown, Penn St, Texas A&M, Ole Miss, (Illinois St), (UNC-Wilmington), Alabama, Providence, Vanderbilt, Rhode Island, UT-Arlington, California, Utah, Stanford, Temple, Auburn, Wichita St