Bracketology: Florida Rises, Bulldogs In, ASU Close

-- Dayton, despite hanging on the edge for quite some time, finally falls out of the field. 7-6 in the A10 simply wont cut it, no matter what their RPI or how good the league is this year. The Flyers are far from done so long as they finish strongly.

-- Mississippi St takes their place. I think the SEC will be a 5-bid leagu, and MSU has a clear leg up on Ole Miss at this point. Mississippi St does play 2 road games coming up, and are just 4-5 on the road this year, so they have some work to do.

-- Arizona St has won 4 straight, including 2 on the road to move right back into the picture. They're now 10-5 in the Pac-10, and their RPI is moving close to 50. A win at Cal tomorrow would most likely push them into the field, but a loss does not necessarily end their hopes.

-- San Diego St remains the highest RPI team not in the field. They had a chance for a big win at BYU the other night, but never really came close. SDSU perhaps needs to win out and make a run to the MWC finals in order to get in. This is a quality team, but one that lacks many quality wins, or any name road wins.

-- Not too much change at the top. Pitt lost to Notre Dame, but none of the other 4 seeds did anything to change their position. Pitt still has the quality RPI to justify a 3 seed over a team like Vandy.

What do you think about today's field?

That's funny! For a second I thought this was a real projection. Now I realize it's just Internet humor. What a joke!

Baylor and Xavier are 7's.. if it was simply a matter of sorting RPI's into groups of 4's the committee's job wouldnt be terriblt hard..

No kidding.

You have Wake Forest too low. Period.

Wake got 2 votes last week.. if the Top 25 poll is a representation of what a group of college basketball voters individuals think, then there's nothing to suggest the committee would think they're anything better then a 7 seed max at this point. If you want to argue they're a 7 seed (ahead of say Missouri or UNI), that's certainly a tenable position, but considering I have them as the #1 8 seed, i don't disagree very much.

Why New Mexico, BYU, and Michigan State over Temple.

New Mexico's RPI is barely ahead of Temple's, but weaker SOS.

New Mexico

RPI top 25 wins: Cal, A&M, BYU
RPI top 50 wins: Dayton, SDSU, UNLV

Average RPI loss: 69

Temple

RPI top 25 wins: Nova, Xavier
RPI top 50 wins: Siena, VA Tech, URI, URI, Dayton

Average RPI loss: 33

UNM has one more top 25 win, but URI is RPI 27 and we beat them twice. Temple has one more RPI top 50 win while playing a tougher schedule, with a better key win against Nova.

BYU
RPI top 25 wins: NONE
RPI top 50 wins: UNLV, UTEP, SDSU, SDSU

Average RPI loss: 30 (with a MUCH weaker schedule)

BYU has ZERO RPI top 25 wins, and less RPI top 50 wins than Temple while playing a SIGNIFICANTLY weaker schedule.

MSU
RPI top 25 wins: Wisconsin
RPI top 50 wins: Gonzaga

Average RPI loss: 41

MSU's resume is even weaker, with solely one RPI top 25 win and one RPI top 50 win besides Wisconsin. MSU has lost to every pretty good and better team they have played besides Wisconsin and Gonzaga. Their record versus the RPI top 50 is 2-5, versus 7-3 for Temple.
Their SOS is slightly stronger, but that's because of their conference affiliation.

So to reiterate, please explain why those teams are ranked ahead of Temple, who has essentially the same RPI as New Mexico, a better RPI than BYU and MSU, a MUCH stronger SOS than BYU, a slightly worse SOS than MSU, more top 25 and top 50 RPI wins than MSU, and BYU, and more RPI 26-50 wins than New Mexico.

I feel UTEP will eventually move up to another notch to a seven or six seed. They are good but not yet respected ...