Final Results – Regan Index vs NCAA Seed List

It’s one thing to predict all 68 teams correctly (most people did this year, despite ESPN’s best efforts to create a scandal because Syracuse wasn’t selected).  And it’s another to predict the seed line correctly (which the Regan Index also did for 42 of the 68 teams.)  But in my opinion the true measure is to compare the teams rankings 1 through 68.  Fortunately, the NCAA now releases their seed list, so this is possible.

Below is a list of teams ranked 1 through 68 (by my Index), and then the NCAA rank and difference from my rank.

In general it’s very consistent.  50 of the 68 teams are within 2 spots in the rankings.  I’m impressed with the committee this year.  However, as always, there were a few head scratchers:

South Carolina: Regan #40, NCAA #26.  This one is hard to figure.  The Gamecocks dropped 5 of their last 7 games.  So I guess they must’ve been really highly ranked by the NCAA before that.  Maybe even top 10, I suppose?  You have to somehow get to 26th after losing 5 of 7.  But still, a 7 seed versus a 10 seed isn’t that big of a deal.  So I’m willing to look past this one.

Rhode Island: Regan #33, NCAA #44.  URI ripped off 8 straight wins to finish the season, 6 of them not at home, and 2 of them over VCU. 44th would imply that they should be in the play-in game, since the NCAA had Providence 42nd and Wake Forest 43rd.  I’m guessing that the NCAA forgot to update their seed list after URI beat VCU, despite moving them out of the play-in game.

Middle Tennessee: Regan #38, NCAA #48.  This one bugs me the most, since it implies that the Blue Raiders were not going to get an at large bid if they hadn’t won the auto bid, and that it may not have been close, since if they had lost they’d fall in the rankings, and with a win they were only 48th.  This is an at large team for sure.  And the NCAA had Nevada 47th – ahead of MTSU.  Not buying that at all.

Other notables: Oklahoma St (NCAA had them 8 spots too low, imo), SMU (7 spots too low), Michigan St (7 spots too high), and Michigan (6 spots too low).

	Regan	NCAA	Difference
Villanova	1	1	0
Kansas	2	2	0
Gonzaga	3	4	-1
Kentucky	4	5	-1
North Carolina	5	3	2
Duke	6	7	-1
Arizona	7	6	1
Louisville	8	8	0
Baylor	9	12	-3
Oregon	10	9	1
UCLA	11	11	0
Florida	12	14	-2
Butler	13	13	0
SMU	14	21	-7
Florida St	15	10	5
Purdue	16	16	0
West Virginia	17	15	2
Iowa St	18	20	-2
Virginia	19	17	2
Notre Dame	20	19	1
Michigan	21	27	-6
Cincinnati	22	22	0
Minnesota	23	18	5
Creighton	24	24	0
Wisconsin	25	29	-4
St Mary’s CA	26	25	1
Maryland	27	23	4
Arkansas	28	31	-3
Oklahoma St	29	37	-8
Dayton	30	28	2
Vanderbilt	31	33	-2
Miami FL	32	30	2
Rhode Island	33	44	-11
Virginia Tech	34	36	-2
Wichita St	35	38	-3
Seton Hall	36	34	2
Northwestern	37	32	5
MTSU	38	48	-10
VCU	39	40	-1
South Carolina	40	26	14
Xavier	41	41	0
Michigan St	42	35	7
Marquette	43	39	4
Wake Forest	44	43	1
Kansas St	45	46	-1
Providence	46	42	4
Nevada	47	47	0
USC	48	45	3
UNC Wilmington	49	49	0
ETSU	50	52	-2
Princeton	51	50	1
Vermont	52	53	-1
Bucknell	53	51	2
Winthrop	54	54	0
N Mexico St.	55	55	0
FGCU	56	56	0
Iona	57	58	-1
Kent St.	58	57	1
N Kentucky	59	59	0
Troy	60	60	0
North Dakota	61	62	-1
Jacksonville St.	62	61	1
New Orleans	63	67	-4
Texas Southern	64	63	1
South Dakota St.	65	64	1
Mt St. Mary’s	66	68	-2
UC Davis	67	65	2
NC Central	68	66	2

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Final 2017 Regan NCAA Tournament Index

Click here for a link of the output to the final 2017 Regan NCAA Tournament Index.  The index predicted 68 of 68 teams that made the tournament correctly.

Until next year!

Final NCAA Tournament Bracket Projection – 5:00ET March 12, 2017

My final bracket projection – this one includes the regions and slight adjustments for mandatory bracketing principles.

	New York	Kansas City	San Jose	Memphis
1	Villanova	Kansas	Gonzaga	Kentucky
2	Duke	Louisville	Arizona	North Carolina
3	Florida	Oregon	Baylor	UCLA
4	West Virginia	Purdue	Florida St.	Butler
5	Virginia	SMU	Iowa St.	Notre Dame
6	Cincinnati	Wisconsin	Minnesota	Michigan
7	Maryland	St. Mary’s	Arkansas	Creighton
8	Dayton	Vanderbilt	Wichita St.	Oklahoma St.
9	Northwestern	Virginia Tech	VCU	Miami FL
10	MTSU	Seton Hall	Xavier	South Carolina
11	Michigan St.	Rhode Island	Wake Forest/USC	Marquette
12	UNC Wilmington	Kansas St./Providence	Nevada	ETSU
13	Princeton	Bucknell	Winthrop	Vermont
14	Iona	N. Kentucky	New Mexico St.	Florida Gulf Coast
15	Jacksonville St.	Kent St.	North Dakota	Troy
16	Mt St. Mary’s/UC Davis	Texas Southern	S Dakota St./NC Central	New Orleans

2017 NIT Tournament Projection

It’s like kissing your sister.  (Sidebar: Don’t try that, you’ll get locked up).  Most teams probably aren’t all that excited about going to the NIT, but someone has to go.  This year, 10 teams earned automatic bids and the remaining 22 spots will be filled by a selection process, one that is quite similar to the NCAA Tournament Selection, but gets little attention in comparison.

With Princeton’s win today, my projected NIT field is complete.  This was a tough process.  The Regan Index would have included 3 teams that have a losing record – Tennessee, Pittsburgh, and Georgetown – as 3 of the at large bids.  The NIT has no current rule against selecting teams with losing records, and it has happened, but I’m guessing it won’t this year.  For that reason, I’ve excluded these teams.  Pitt and Tennessee have very favorable resumes for the NIT, so it wouldn’t shock me if they are selected.  Georgetown would be very surprising.

The 10 teams that earned auto bids:

Illinois St (unless they are selected by the NCAA committee), Texas-Arlington, Monmouth, Oakland, Belmont, UNC Greensboro, South Dakota, Cal St. Bakersfield, Akron, and UC Irvine.

My last 4 teams in (of the 22 at large bids): Richmond, Texas Tech, Boise St, Valparaiso (last in)

1st 4 out: Texas A&M (1st out), Colorado, Fresno St., Davidson

Others considered: Auburn, San Diego St., GW, George Mason, Memphis, New Mexico

Note that I moved Valpo into the field ahead of Texas A&M.  Alec Peters was injured and missed several important games, and Valpo ran to the final last year.  I’d personally put A&M in, but I’m trying to guess what the committee will do.

The projected field by region:

	Midwest	East	South	West
1	Illinois St.	Syracuse	Georgia	California
2	Illinois	Indiana	Clemson	TCU
3	Houston	Alabama	Iowa	UT Arlington
4	Mississippi	UCF	Ohio St.	BYU
5	Charleston	Monmouth	Georgia Tech	Utah
6	Texas Tech	Richmond	Boise St.	Colorado St.
7	Oakland	Belmont	UNC Greensboro	Texas A&M
8	South Dakota	CS Bakersfield	Akron	UC Irvine

 

 

 

Regan NCAA Tournament Index 3/12/2017 (games through Saturday 3/11/2017)

A few notes on my projected field:

• The team assumed to get the automatic bid for each conference is the highest team in the ratings currently eligible for the bid. In other words, it isn’t necessarily the team with the better conference record (ie, I have Troy in over Texas St for now).
• No at large bids are up for grabs in the 6 games today.  URI is in even if they lose.  10 of the 12 teams that play today will be in – the Ivy and Sun Belt losers won’t.
• There is significant separation between a few of the teams ranked next to each other.  Please look at the Index output linked below to see how close/far teams are from each other.  A difference of 1.00 between teams ranked next to each other is average.

Full numerical output of the Regan Index using games through 3-11-2017

The projected field as of March 12, 2017 (in order from left to right on each seed line – this is not a bracket!) Assumed automatic bids are the team from each conference that is highest in the index.

1	Villanova	Kansas	Gonzaga	Kentucky
2	North Carolina	Duke	Arizona	Louisville
3	Oregon	Baylor	UCLA	Florida
4	Butler	Florida St	West Virginia	Purdue
5	Iowa St	Virginia	Notre Dame	Cincinnati
6	SMU	Wisconsin	Minnesota	Creighton
7	Michigan	St Mary’s CA	Maryland	Arkansas
8	Oklahoma St	Dayton	Vanderbilt	Wichita St
9	VCU	Miami FL	Virginia Tech	Seton Hall
10	Northwestern	MTSU	Xavier	South Carolina
11	Marquette	Rhode Island	Michigan St	Wake Forest/USC
12	Kansas St./Providence	Nevada	UNC Wilmington	ETSU
13	Princeton	Vermont	Bucknell	Winthrop
14	New Mexico St	FL Gulf Coast	Iona	Northern Kentucky
15	Kent	Troy	North Dakota	Jacksonville St
16	New Orleans	TX Southern	S Dakota St./NC Central	Mt St. Mary’s/UC Davis
Last 4 BYES	South Carolina	Marquette	Rhode Island	Michigan St
Last 4 IN	Wake Forest	Kansas St.	Providence	USC
1st 4 OUT	Illinois St.	Clemson	Georgia	Illinois
2nd 4 OUT	California	Syracuse	TCU	Indiana

Regan NCAA Tournament Index 3/11/2017 (games through Friday 3/10/2017)

If you’re like me, it’s one more day until Christmas week.  The week starting with selection Sunday and ending with 16 teams remaining for the chance to win it all is my favorite week of the year (much to the chagrin of my wife and kids – even my 13 year old son thinks I’m nuts).

This year seems about as clear cut as I’ve ever seen.  The teams that are going to get at large bids have separated themselves from the teams that aren’t more than usual, according to my formula.  Only one team not in my projected field (Illinois St) is close enough to have a legit argument.  While this isn’t necessarily an “exciting” finish to the selection process, I’m happy about it because there is something nice about a clear cut decision process.  I think there’s a good chance that the committee will agree (as will many of the other bracketologists out there, with the exception of Joe Lunardi, who has gone ape crazy on the ACC, and still has 7 loss UNC as the #2 overall seed and 18-14, RPI 84 Syracuse (2-11 in road neutral games) as the 4th to last team in – let’s hope the committee isn’t drinking what Joey Brackets is serving up).

I’ll be analyzing the upcoming selection over the next 30 or so hours and posting here and on Twitter.  You can send me any questions via Twitter @MikeReganNC.

A few notes on my projected field:

• The team assumed to get the automatic bid for each conference is the highest team in the ratings currently eligible for the bid. In other words, it isn’t necessarily the team with the best conference record.
• There will likely be one or more bids stolen by conference tourney winners this week that wouldn’t have received an at large bid otherwise. So if a team is one of the last 4 in now, they will likely need to improve their profile to receive an at large bid on Selection Sunday.
• There is significant separation between a few of the teams ranked next to each other.  Please look at the Index output linked below to see how close/far teams are from each other.  A difference of 1.00 between teams ranked next to each other is average.

Full numerical output of the Regan Index using games through 3-10-2017

The projected field as of March 11, 2017 (in order from left to right on each seed line.) Assumed automatic bids are the team from each conference that is highest in the index.

1	Villanova	Kansas	Gonzaga	Kentucky
2	North Carolina	Duke	Oregon	Arizona
3	Louisville	Baylor	UCLA	Florida
4	West Virginia	Butler	Florida St	Purdue
5	Notre Dame	Virginia	Cincinnati	Iowa St
6	SMU	Minnesota	Creighton	Wisconsin
7	Michigan	St Mary’s CA	Maryland	Vanderbilt
8	Arkansas	Oklahoma St	Northwestern	Dayton
9	Wichita St	Miami FL	Virginia Tech	VCU
10	Seton Hall	Xavier	South Carolina	MTSU
11	Marquette	Michigan St	Wake Forest	Rhode Island/USC
12	Kansas St./Providence	UNC Wilmington	Nevada	UT Arlington
13	ETSU	Princeton	Vermont	Bucknell
14	Winthrop	Akron	CS Bakersfield	FL Gulf Coast
15	Iona	Northern Kentucky	UC Irvine	Jacksonville St
16	North Dakota	S Dakota St	Tx Southern/NC Central	TX A&M CC/Mt St. Mary’s
Last 4 BYES	South Carolina	Marquette	Michigan St	Wake Forest
Last 4 IN	Rhode Island	Kansas St.	Providence	USC
1st 4 OUT	Illinois St.	Georgia	Clemson	Illinois
2nd 4 OUT	Syracuse	Indiana	California	Iowa

Regan NCAA Tournament Index 3/10/2017 (games through Thursday 3/9/2017)

If you’d like to follow me on Twitter for daily update notifications: @MikeReganNC

You can also send me any questions via Twitter.

A few notes on my projected field:

• The team assumed to get the automatic bid for each conference is the highest team in the ratings currently eligible for the bid. In other words, it isn’t necessarily the team with the best conference record.
• There will likely be one or more bids stolen by conference tourney winners this week that wouldn’t have received an at large bid otherwise. So if a team is one of the last 4 in now, they will likely need to improve their profile to receive an at large bid on Selection Sunday.
• There is significant separation between a few of the teams ranked next to each other.  Please look at the Index output linked below to see how close/far teams are from each other.  A difference of 1.00 between teams ranked next to each other is average.

Full numerical output of the Regan Index using games through Thursday 3-9-2017

The projected field as of March 10, 2017 (in order from left to right on each seed line.) Assumed automatic bids are the team from each conference that is highest in the index.

1	Villanova	Gonzaga	Kansas	North Carolina
2	Kentucky	Florida	Duke	UCLA
3	Louisville	Oregon	Baylor	Florida St
4	Purdue	Arizona	Butler	West Virginia
5	Virginia	Notre Dame	SMU	Cincinnati
6	Iowa St	Minnesota	Maryland	Creighton
7	Wisconsin	St Mary’s CA	Dayton	Michigan
8	Oklahoma St	Arkansas	South Carolina	Miami FL
9	Wichita St	Seton Hall	Virginia Tech	Xavier
10	VCU	Vanderbilt	Michigan St	Northwestern
11	MTSU	Marquette	Wake Forest	Kansas St./USC
12	Providence/URI	UNC Wilmington	Nevada	UT Arlington
13	Princeton	Vermont	ETSU	Bucknell
14	Winthrop	CS Bakersfield	Akron	FL Gulf Coast
15	Iona	Northern Kentucky	UC Irvine	Jacksonville St
16	E Washington	S Dakota St	Tx Southern/NC Central	TX A&M CC/Mt St. Mary’s
Last 4 BYES	Northwestern	MTSU	Marquette	Wake Forest
Last 4 IN	Kansas St.	Providence	Rhode Island	USC
1st 4 OUT	Georgia	Illinois St.	Clemson	TCU
2nd 4 OUT	Indiana	Illinois	California	Syracuse

Regan NCAA Tournament Index 3/8/2017 (games through Tuesday 3/7/2017)

It’s easy for Syracuse – win today and they are in.  Lose and they go to the NIT.

If you’d like to follow me on Twitter for daily update notifications: @MikeReganNC

You can also send me any questions via Twitter.

A few notes on my projected field:

• The team assumed to get the automatic bid for each conference is the highest team in the ratings currently eligible for the bid. In other words, it isn’t necessarily the team with the best conference record.
• There will likely be one or more bids stolen by conference tourney winners this week that wouldn’t have received an at large bid otherwise. So if a team is one of the last 4 in now, they will likely need to improve their profile to receive an at large bid on Selection Sunday.
• There is significant separation between a few of the teams ranked next to each other.  Please look at the Index output linked below to see how close/far teams are from each other.  A difference of 1.00 between teams ranked next to each other is average.

Full numerical output of the Regan Index based on games through 3-7-2017

The projected field as of March 8, 2017 (in order from left to right on each seed line.) Assumed automatic bids are the team from each conference that is highest in the index.

1	Villanova	Kansas	Gonzaga	North Carolina
2	Kentucky	Louisville	Baylor	Florida
3	Oregon	UCLA	Butler	Duke
4	Purdue	Arizona	Florida St	West Virginia
5	Virginia	SMU	Cincinnati	Maryland
6	Notre Dame	Iowa St	Minnesota	Wisconsin
7	St Mary’s CA	Creighton	Oklahoma St	Dayton
8	South Carolina	Arkansas	Wichita St	Miami FL
9	Michigan	Virginia Tech	VCU	Wake Forest
10	Marquette	Seton Hall	Xavier	Northwestern
11	Michigan St	Providence	Vanderbilt/Kansas St.	MTSU
12	USC/Rhode Island	UNC Wilmington	Nevada	UT Arlington
13	ETSU	Princeton	Vermont	Bucknell
14	Winthrop	Akron	New Mexico St	FL Gulf Coast
15	Iona	Northern Kentucky	UC Irvine	Jacksonville St
16	E Washington	S Dakota St	Tx Southern/NC Central	TX A&M CC/Mt St. Mary’s
Last 4 BYES	Xavier	Northwestern	Michigan St	Providence
Last 4 IN	Vanderbilt	USC	Rhode Island	Kansas St.
1st 4 OUT	Illinois St.	Iowa	Syracuse	Illinois
2nd 4 OUT	Clemson	Georgia	Indiana	California

ACC Bubble Analysis

The ACC Tournament starts on Tuesday, with the first of the 3 preliminary round games tipping off at noon ET.  Ordinarily, I’d be able to wait until Wednesday to post this analysis, however the ACC is so deep this year that a few teams playing on Tuesday actually still have a chance at an at large NCAA Tournament bid (and these are the 10th through 15th best ACC teams)!

Quite a few ACC teams (8) have already locked up a spot in the NCAA tourney:

Current Seed	Team
1	North Carolina
2	Louisville
3	Duke
4	Florida St
5	Virginia
5	Notre Dame
8	Miami FL
9	Virginia Tech

I hesitated to include Virginia Tech on this list only because they could still wind up playing BC in their first ACC tourney game (if BC knocks off Wake Forest on Tuesday).  That’d be a bad loss and move them down, but I think the Hokies would still make it.  Losing to Wake wouldn’t hurt them much.  Let’s say this – I reserve the right to reevaluate VT if the unlikely scenario that they play and lose to BC occurs (I have this as a less than 2% chance based on Kenpom).

Like VT, Wake Forest is currently also a 9 seed, but I didn’t include the Deacs as a lock because they definitely play BC on Tuesday.  Avoid the bad loss to BC, and Wake should be in even if they lose to VT the next day (beating VT would actually move them ahead of the Hokies, but we’ll discuss seeding another day).

Essentially, both VT and Wake will receive at large bids unless they lose to BC in the ACC tourney.

Syracuse is currently in my first four out.  The Orange have some really good home wins in conference, but that’s about it.  They currently have an RPI of 80 (that’d be the worst to receive an at large bid since the new RPI formula was created in 2005).  The main reason for the poor RPI is their awful road and neutral court performance.   They look like an NCAA tourney quality team if you watch them play, but they are going to need to beat Miami on Wednesday in the 8/9 game to improve their RPI and road/neutral profile.  Lose that one, and the 18-14 ‘Cuse will be watching the NIT Selection Show on ESPN News.

The good news for Syracuse is that I think beating Miami will lock up a spot for them.  It’ll improve their RPI and give them a solid win on a neutral court, fixing the two main issues with their profile (to some extent).  They’d play UNC next, and losing that one might actually help their RPI.  So for Syracuse, they need 1 win, and they are likely in.

Clemson is perhaps the most interesting discussion.  This is a team that looked like a surefire NCAA team before ACC play began.  But the Tigers have struggled through some very close, tough losses in the league, finishing in 12th place at 6-12 .  It might seem crazy to include a 16-14 (6-12) team in the discussion, but if Clemson can go on a run in the ACC tourney, it might be enough.  How much of a run, you ask?

I think three wins would likely do it, and four definitely would.  Three would mean wins over NC St., Duke, and Lousiville, all on a neutral court.  Even with a loss in the semis to UNC/Miami/Syracuse, the Tigers would be 19-15 with a conference record that would be much improved at 9-13.  Their RPI (currently 70th, ahead of Syracuse) would be in the top 50, and they’d have some really good wins on road/neutral courts when you also consider that they won at Wake Forest, S. Carolina, and Alabama.

Georgia Tech seems to have too much to overcome, but a 4 win run to the ACC final would be tough to ignore.  Despite being ahead of Clemson in the ACC standings, the Yellow Jackets lack the overall profile (RPI of 94, yikes) and are behind the Tigers as far as an at large bid is concerned.

Pittsburgh, despite having some pretty good metrics for a team with an overall losing record (RPI of 71), will need to win the ACC tourney to receive a bid.  The committee likely won’t give an at large bid to a team with an 8-15 record in conference, even with a run to the ACC final.

Other than BC (which we won’t even discuss), NC State has the worst profile of any ACC team, and unless they can pull off a miracle run for their lame duck coach, the season will end this week for the Wolfpack.

 

Regan NCAA Tournament Index 3/6/2017 (games through Sunday 3/5/2017)

Illinois St. falls to the first team out, and is replaced in the field by Kansas St.  It’s not looking good for mid majors – it’s very possible that every at large team will be from one of 8 conferences + 1 for Gonzaga/ St. Mary’s.

From more likely to less, here is how I rank the mid majors at large chances:

MTSU (if they lose in CUSA tourney), Illinois St., UNCW, Nevada, UTA (if they lose), Monmouth.

MTSU and Illinois St. would essentially be toss ups to get in, with the rest unlikely.

If you’d like to follow me on Twitter for daily update notifications: @MikeReganNC

You can also send me any questions via Twitter.

A few notes on my projected field:

• The team assumed to get the automatic bid for each conference is the highest team in the ratings currently eligible for the bid. In other words, it isn’t necessarily the team with the best conference record.
• There will likely be one or more bids stolen by conference tourney winners next week that wouldn’t have received an at large bid otherwise. So if a team is one of the last 4 in now, they will likely need to improve their profile to receive an at large bid on Selection Sunday.
• There is significant separation between a few of the teams ranked next to each other.  Please look at the Index output linked below to see how close/far teams are from each other.  A difference of 1.00 between teams ranked next to each other is average.

The projected field as of March 6, 2017 (in order from left to right on each seed line.) Assumed automatic bids are the team from each conference that is highest in the index.

Full numerical output of the Regan Index through games of 3-5-2017

1	Villanova	Kansas	Gonzaga	North Carolina
2	Kentucky	Louisville	Baylor	Florida
3	Oregon	UCLA	Butler	Duke
4	Purdue	Arizona	Florida St	West Virginia
5	Virginia	SMU	Cincinnati	Notre Dame
6	Maryland	Minnesota	Iowa St	Wisconsin
7	Creighton	St Mary’s CA	Oklahoma St	Dayton
8	Arkansas	South Carolina	Miami FL	Wichita St
9	Michigan	Virginia Tech	VCU	Wake Forest
10	Seton Hall	Marquette	Xavier	Michigan St
11	Providence	Northwestern	Vanderbilt/Kansas St.	MTSU
12	USC/Rhode Island	UNC Wilmington	Nevada	UT Arlington
13	Princeton	Vermont	Bucknell	Winthrop
14	ETSU	Akron	New Mexico St	FL Gulf Coast
15	Iona	Northern Kentucky	South Dakota	UC Irvine
16	Jacksonville St	E Washington	Tx Southern/NC Central	TX A&M CC/Mt St. Mary’s
Last 4 BYES	Xavier	Michigan St	Providence	Northwestern
Last 4 IN	Vanderbilt	USC	Rhode Island	Kansas St.
1st 4 OUT	Illinois St.	Illinois	Iowa	Syracuse
2nd 4 OUT	Georgia	Clemson	Indiana	California