One Bid League Predictions

Once again, no slights intended as to who's who here.  I just know that despite gaudy records, these regular season champions have no shot of catching the eye of the committee for an at-large:

Not much to say about the MAC, other than there doesn't seem to be any continuity or esteem here anymore. A hot season or two in the MAC used to be a launching pad to a nice BCS gig.  Instead, Keith Dambrot gets exiled to Duquesne for his accomplishments.  Duquense would be at the bottom of the MAC, and it's not for a lack of trying from Everhart or Ferry.  That said, the MAC still gets coaches, they still get players, but they just don't build the resumes they used to and have fallen behind the likes of the MAAC, Summit, and Southern.  I would not see any of these top 4 hanging with the Ivy top 4 over the long haul.

The WAC is up for grabs.  UVU doesn't quite have the horses to maintain their pace for a full 40 and will struggle against the top 3.  Bakersfield has been on a nice run, but with GCU eligible for postseason, it makes their path more difficult.  The Aztecs looked ready to run the regular season table until the road went through the other top schools.  This should be an entertaining race, but I expect Dan Majerle to get GCU to the promised land in their first season of eligibility.

The Ohio Valley has been a lot of Belmont, but without Bradds, that should change.  Jacksonville St. finished on the upswing and will continue that way.  Too much turmoil elsewhere in the conference to feel anyone else is a sexy pick.

The Summit is simple: the Dakota schools are good (the monopoly will be more apparent with UND coming over next year), ORU and Western Illinois are not.  Fort Wayne had their window close, and Denver is recovering from Joe Scott. 

This is the worst Big Sky I can remember.  NAU, ISU, SUU are among the worst teams in the country again.  There was a time when the Sky would park one team down there only to have them bounce back.  I like the skill players at Idaho (Sanders) and Montana St (Hall) to drive those teams to the top of the standings.

Duggar Baucom has his system and players in place, but I think the opposition is on to his pace and The Citadel can only go as far as their defense takes them.  UNC Greensboro has a fun team, but I don't think they have the overall consistency to take the regular season crown from Furman.

Vermont probably won't be on the fringes of the at-large discussion, but they should roll through the AE again.  Albany provides a nice foil, but UNH is several steps below after that.

Bucknell has a NCAA weekend-caliber team.  I don't see anyone in the Patriot gaining ground, though the work that Ed DeChellis has done, and Navy should improve their league win total for the 6th straight year.

One-Bid League Reality Check

I like to stand by my preseason call as long as possible.  Some of these calls, such as Howard in the MEAC, were flawed from the start.  Other calls, such as Liberty in the Big South, were sabotaged by injury or circumstance.  Sometimes you tried to ride a darkhorse, like Bryant, who just does not have the talent to emerge.  And finally, sometimes you think you really understand a team and its ability to deploy a tactic upon lesser competition, only you were dead wrong, as in the case the case of my Horizon picks.

First, preseason to league play, I maintained 25 of 32 projected winners.  Better than 75% isn’t bad, but there is still work to be done.  Also, it warrants mentioning that for the for the “surely auto-bid” leagues, we are selecting who is most likely to make the field, not necessarily who is going to have the best league win percentages.

Conferences that I definitely need to amend:

Northeast

America East

Southland

MAC

Conferences that will not fall my way, but intend to stick with my call to upset the tourney:

Summit

Patriot

Big West

Conferences way too close to call:

Sun Belt

Southern

Ivy

Big South (Liberty, back from the dead!)

Northeast

Let me disclose- this is an awful conference this year.  I rolled the dice with Bryant early, flopped to Robert Morris, but now it impossible to decide.  I love a local pick in Mount St. Mary’s, but not so sure they can sustain their run trotting out a bunch of mites.  FDU has warts, and LIU just dumped to a very weak CCSU team.  Nobody has shown that they can compete at the “Field of 68” level, but we will reward the Mountaineers for their consistency that will lead them through the NEC.

America East

Straight up, Vermont may be one of the 68 best teams in the country.  Seriously, you wouldn’t take them in your bracket over the bottom 10 SEC teams?  I originally, and still, wanted New Hampshire to put it all together because they have never been anywhere near the postseason before.  Nobody in this league has the ability to solve Vermont’s attack.  UMBC may be able to push the pace, but they won’t get the stops.  The Cats also live around the rim, so they are less prone to a cold shooting night.

Southland

It doesn’t look like the “Community College” turning it around soon enough.  There is still a lot to like there, but the results aren’t happening.  The Jacks are near the top of the standings, but the kenpom numbers tell another story.  New Orleans has come out of nowhere, but I’m leaning toward the Bearkats.  After a slow start, they have won 7 in a row, including at New Orleans.  Both teams are poor shooting and loose with the ball, but I expect the Privateers to regress (two OT wins).

Mid-American

Akron is one of the few teams enjoying success maintaining a slow tempo when the game has opened up to “embrace the pace”.  This is the slowest team Keith Dambrot has put on the floor at Akron, but they work to exploit the 3-point shot, and make just enough to be dangerous.  Outside of a sloppy start against Youngstown State, they have beaten everyone they were supposed to beat.  They still have Ohio and EMU on the road that could expose a flaw, but I expect them to coast through.

Fun stat: Since reaching the Final Four in 2007, the Georgetown Hoyas have been knocked out of the NCAA tourney 6 straight times by lower seeds.  It will be interesting to see if JT3 gets a chance to extend that streak, because it will not be this year.

Update: MAC

Mid American

Summary: This is a peculiar conference where no team is truly bad (Miami is better than expected) and no team is an NCAA lock (Ohio played a terrible schedule and still lost 3 games).  Right now, I have the winner here in line behind Arlington, Chattanooga, Fort Wayne, Belmont, Harvard, and Valpo.  Sure, because there are not many bad wins/losses in the conference slate, maybe they can regress to the mean, but the MAC winner is the last 14 seed today, possibly 15 depending how the regions shake out.  The Big MAC has fallen on hard times.  Its lone Top 100 win was Kent over Texas, and that win looks worse every time Texas plays.

What I got wrong: It will be hard to say with the division format, but I missed on Eastern Michigan and Akron… then again, the middle of the conference is so mediocre, there really isn’t much separating 3^rd from 10^th.   Northern Illinois is dreadful offensively; Marshawn Wilson isn’t a major contributor, but it can’t be a coincidence they bombed two easy home games with him out of the lineup.

Prognosis: Buffalo looks to be trending downward.  Maybe they pull things together, but my guess is that Akron, Toledo, and EMU lap them to take a crack at the Bobcats.  I don’t think WMU is as bad as their record indicates.

MAC	Preseason	Realtime
1	Ohio	Ohio
2	Buffalo	Toledo
3	Toledo	Akron
4	Northern Illinois	Eastern Michigan
5	Central Michigan	Buffalo
6	Akron	Central Michigan
7	Eastern Michigan	Kent State
8	Bowling Green	Northern Illinois
9	Western Michigan	Western Michigan
10	Kent State	Bowling Green
11	Ball State	Ball State
12	Miami	Miami

63 Teams for 47 spots

The MAC and Conference USA are 1 bid leagues, lucky to make the 13 line, unless somebody runs the table and loses in the conference finals.  Not very likely because these are pretty balanced leagues.

2017 Predictions: The Majors

Yes!  The “Major” conferences.  These are the bread and butter to forecasting a good bracket.  The powers that be make it impossible to properly rate the BCS conference teams, watching middling teams get way over-seeded or included, while strong teams from this group regularly get the shaft.  It frustrates me to no end when I am championing two potential Cinderella teams and they get pitted against each in the 7-10 game, all the while boasting the profile of a 4-5 seed.  Meanwhile, some pluck BCS bubble team sneaks into their conference semifinals and is suddenly anointed champion of the hour.

Most of you will probably get a chuckle out of the likes of Texas San Antonio playing in a major conference, or being put in the same breath as defending champion Villanova.  However, even the MAC and Conference USA have the talent to be multi-bid leagues with a couple breaks.

The Big East should continue to roll deeper than most of the BCS conferences.  Nova is still deep, Xavier keeps getting better, and Seton Hall has recovered from 2 decades of apathy in a basketball-first environment.  If Greg McDermott has turned the corner in Omaha, this conference really has 4 teams looking at top 4 seeds.  Early results show that Marquette, Butler and Providence should compete well despite personnel losses.  DePaul and Saint John’s will continue to suck… more on those teams in another post.

That also brings me to a point.  Very few of my preseason previews will mention specific players.  And isn’t that I don’t or don’t care.  25 years of college basketball obsession have proven a few things.  The first is that players win games.  Supremely talented shooters, ball-handlers, and big men make plays that affect the outcomes of games.  However, good coaching wins championships.  Somebody who is thinking 5 steps ahead to make sure he is getting the most of each position on floor night after night is the biggest difference between the NIT and NCAA tourney for many of these teams.  When it comes down to projecting standings, players come, go, get hurt, get suspended.  A good coach deals with it all and adjusts.  On the list of NCAA tournament winning coaches, there are very few “interlopers”.  Kevin Ollie has yet to prove himself (and say what you want about these guys’ ethics… discussion for another time), but Jim Harrick is the only one who stands out in the last 30 years as being “wtf, how did he win?”  Buying into a coach’s system, process and character goes further than guess which of these 3, 4, and 5 star recruits will pan out.

The Atlantic 10 is the sleeping giant.  Because of the lack of football exposure, every year people ask me, “where is Saint Bonaventure?”  Dayton is back and Archie Miller should get them much deeper into the tournament.  Davidson has made the adjustment from the Southern Conference and continue to find talent other major programs pass on. I keep waiting for Richmond to turn the corner, but something seems missing from his Princeton-style attack.  VCU will probably take a step back from elite to just really good.  Shaka Smart’s coattails are only so long, and eventually will run out.  The real wild cards are the other Rams (URI) and the Bonnies.  Both look ready to make some noise this year.  So many schools in this conference in great recruiting areas so it is hard to imagine them not fielding good teams.

In the AAC, Southern Methodist has broken my heart enough the last couple years.  Larry Brown’s name was enough to get people interested in the program after a history of ineptitude.  They should be a Sweet 16 team this year.  Cincinnati is not going away, but Memphis may… not sure I buy this Tubby Smith experiment.  This may only be a 2 bid league unless somebody emerges from the Houston/Tulsa/UConn/Temple bubble.

Gonzaga and Saint Mary’s have reloaded… Saint Mary’s was violently screwed on selection Sunday and have a chip on their shoulder.  BYU always looks great on the court, then you blink and they have 9 losses.  Pepperdine may have the horse to sneak past them in the standings, but not enough to threaten the Top Dogs.  Santa Clara will slow it down this year and be a dark horse by the end of the season.

UNLV is a hot mess right now and I can’t that getting fixed before February.  Nevada has the depth to push ahead of San Diego State, and both are solid at-large teams.  Picking 3 through 7 here is a crapshoot, but New Mexico boasts the best home court advantage that will play out in the regular season.  There is a lot of talent in this conference, and is a year away from maybe getting 4-5 teams in.

Conference USA is full of teams that seem to covet the glory of major conference football, but have so little pedigree nobody is buying in yet.  MTSU is the best of the bunch, but the Monarchs and Blazers bring some tourney experience to the table.  Marshall and Charlotte will push the pace all season long, but neither are equipped to win regularly on the road (shoot, play D).

The MVC misses Creighton.  Northern Iowa is trying to play foil to the Shockers’ dominance, but after that the cupboard is pretty bare.  Barry Hinson looks to have SIU on the right track, and Illinois State is a solid 20 win team, but the lack of depth will keep this conference low in the RPI discussion, and anyone not named Gregg Marshall should expect to be forced to win Arch Madness to secure a bid in the Dance.

Buffalo (the house Reggie Witherspoon built) has been solid for the last 5+ years, but the test will be whether it can be sustained. Ohio and Toledo are fortunately n opposite sides of the conference as to not cannibalize each other.  Keno Davis will bring some excitement to Central Michigan.  The conference will need a few signature wins early to get into the 2 bid discussion.