Warming Up the Crystal Ball

Bracket scientists are all too familiar with the phrase "Bracket Crunch Time." It describes the 88 hours following the full reveal of the tournament bracket until the 11am submission deadline on opening Thursday that bracket pickers across the world have to make their 63 selections. It implies another meaning: a ton of thought, information, analysis, and effort are 'crunched' into a short amount of 'time.' They are exhausting, nerve-racking, secretive, overwhelming, and yes, most of all, exciting. Everyone -- bracket scientists, sports media, average Joes, and even first-time bracket pickers -- does it. Yet, bracket scientists shouldn't be doing what the non-scientists are doing. We should be doing much of our thought, information, analysis and effort during Brunch Time, not Crunch Time. When everyone is having their cup of tea, doing their run-of-the-mill activities, or otherwise being complacent until lunch time or even closing time arrives, this Brunch Time should be our Crunch Time when we get ahead of the curve and do the things that the non-scientists do during their Crunch Time. So that's what we're going to do right now. We are going to warm up the crystal ball in December's Brunch Time (not in March) in order to be better prepared for the real Crunch Time.

KNOWNS AND UNKNOWNS

Let's start with what we don't know (the Unknowns), and these are really obvious, but we need to identify them regardless. I'll most likely create a page at the top of the blog (probably name it something cheesy like Cheat Sheet) that will keep track of these unknowns.

1. The Bracket - This won't appear until Mar 12, 2017.
2. Injuries - They happen and they matter. It seems the earlier they happen, the better it is for the team because the team has more time to adjust to them. Teams that go through multiple injuries to different players at different times also need to be tracked because the committee takes these injuries into account when an at-large teams has questionable losses on the resume.

Now, we take a look at the things we do know, and how the knowledge of these things helps us get ahead of the curve.

1. Conference Schedule - This is where separation will begin. Teams that win night in and night out against quality opponents will earn the higher seeds. However, we can look at these games as potential tournament games, most likely S16 or E8 match-ups. Also, a team involved in these games could potentially play an early-round opponent with similar personnel or play styles to the regular-season opponent. Going in order of the current conference RPI rankings*, all predictions based on non-conference resume plus projected above-500 conference record (both these qualities should warrant a tournament bid):
• BEC - NOVA, BUT, CREI, HALL, XAV, GTWN - All teams play each other H/A.
• ACC - DUKE, UVA, UNC, LOU, FLST, VT, DAME, MIA (any team not listed must go above .500 in conference with wins -- preferably a road win -- against upper half to get in, schedule below shows each team's home opponents of those listed)
• DUKE - MIA, UNC, FSU (they have a road game against each top team)
• UVA - FSU, VT, LOU, DUKE, MIA, UNC (might win conf b/c 6 home vs top)
• UNC - FSU, VT, DAME, UVA, LOU, DUKE (same as UVA)
• LOU - UVA, DUKE, MIA, VT, DAME
• FLST - VT, DUKE, DAME, LOU, MIA
• VT - DUKE, DAME, UVA, MIA
• DAME - LOU, UVA, DUKE, FSU
• MIA - DAME, UNC, FSU, VT, DUKE
• 9th team - must go above .500 in conf with W's, preferably road, against upper half
• B12 - KU, BAY, WVU, OKST, IAST (maybe +1 more, all teams play each other H/A)
• B10 - IND, MARY, WISC, PUR, MICH, MINN (schedule details same as ACC)
• IND - WISC, PUR, MICH
• MARY -IND, PUR, MINN
• WISC - MICH, IND, MARY, MINN
• PUR - MINN, WISC, IND
• MICH - MARY, IND, WISC, PUR
• MINN - WISC, MARY, IND, MICH
• Possible 7th - MIST, OHST, NW (best opportunities for quality Ws)
• SEC - UK, SCAR, FLA
• UK - SCAR, FLA (Will be the measuring stick for all other SEC teams)
• SCAR - FLA
• FLA - UK, SCAR (gets all 4th team contenders below at home as well)
• 4th team - ARK, TXAM, TENN (in that order)
• P12 - UCLA, ARI, USC, ORE, CAL
• UCLA - H/A (ORE, USC, ARI) H (CAL)
• ARI - H/A (UCLA, USC, CAL) @ORE
• USC - H/A (ORE, UCLA, ARI) H (CAL)
• ORE - H/A (UCLA, USC, CAL) H (ARI)
• CAL - H/A (ORE, ARI), A(UCLA, USC)
• 6th team - COL, UTAH, STAN (in that order because of favorable schedule)
• WCC, A10, and AMER can be multi-bid conferences, but A10 and AMER teams must avoid bad losses in their conference to match resumes with the Power 6 above).
• WCC - GONZ, STMY
• A10 - DAY, URI, VCU, DAVD (I have no clue how this conference will play out)
• AMER - CIN, SMU, MEM
2. Remaining non-conference: Speaking of potential tournament match-ups, there are non-conference games still on schedule with this kind of potential. I have them listed below.
• 12-21: UVA@CAL, UK@LOU
• 12-31: IND@LOU(neut)
• 1-26: CIN@XAV
• 1-28: KU@UK, TXAM@WVU, FLA@OU, ARK@OKST, KSU@TENN
• 1-29: UVA@NOVA
3. Tournament Locations (Pod Sites)- Since we already know the pod sites (home field advantage for seeds 1-4), then in theory, we can get a rough sketch of the actual bracket before it releases.
• Buffalo, NY - NOVA, MARY/Loser of Milwaukee Pod/Random 4-seed
• Greenville, SC - ACC#1, ACC#2/SCAR(Only if they sweep SEC reg & tourney)
• Orlando, FL - ACC#3, ACC#4/SEC#2/Random 4-seed,
• Milwaukee, WI - BUT, B10(NOT MARY), Loser of Indianapolis
• Indianapolis, IN - UK, LOU/WVU/B10(NOT MARY/WISC/MINN)
• Tulsa, OK - B12#1(NOT WVU), B12#2(NOT WVU)/CREI(if wins BEC)
• Salt Lake City, UT - Loser of Sacramento, B12#3/PAC12#3(NOT UTAH)/CREI/WCC#2
• Sacramento, CA, PAC12#1, PAC12#2/WCC#1
4. Games Played - This is the most obvious known that I debated if I even needed to mention it. We currently have 40 days worth of games in the record books, with 82 days remaining. In other words, 1/3 of the pre-tourney season is already complete. I am not going to recap these past 40 days, but I will state that this proves my point at the beginning: Why should we cram this 1/3 plus 2 more thirds into 88 hours when we can stop now and reflect on them (while they are still fresh in our minds) and use them as reference point to grade the next two-thirds of the season (who separates and who doesn't and why).

INTERPRETATIONS AND PREDICTIONS

I've been keeping track of a lot of things these past 40 days: wins, losses, stats, ratings, etc. I don't know if I can make sense of it all or if anything will be gained from this experiment, but I am willing to give it the old college try.

My first impressions of this college basketball landscape can be described in one word: Tiered.

• There are probably 5-7 groups of teams (tiers), and each group is better than all other groups below it. 
• The teams "within" each group are not entirely equal amongst one another. Compared to one another, they have a rock-paper-scissors relationship.
• I would say the top tier is (give or take) 20 teams. The 2nd tier is slightly larger, around 30 teams. The third tier is probably around 50. The remaining (2-4) tiers comprise the other 251 teams (and none of them I feel will make any noise in the tournament).

It simply means there are no clear-cut favorites. In fact, Ken Pomeroy, in one of his blog posts, pointed out that there are no clear-cut favorites for Player of the Year. It is strange that one-third of the season is gone and the best candidates for POY are candidates only due to what they did last year. In this type of environment where no clear-cut favorites have proven themselves, it seems likely that one of two scenarios will play out.

1. We get little to no separation and the tournament comes down to Xs & Os match-ups (which is why paying attention to the match-ups in the regular season will be critical).
2. We get separation, favorites emerge, but their "favorite status" are not obvious. Let me explain below.

It seems very likely for this year that 1-seeds could be handed out to untested out-performers.

• UK can literally sleepwalk to a 1-seed (even if they lose to LOU on 12/21) with a home win over KU in January and strong performance in a seemingly cup-cake conference.
• NOVA could possibly do the exact same thing: they host UVA in January and could start a run in the BEC. Even though the quality of BEC teams are a little stronger, they may have one or two losses and still come out smelling like a rose. They are the defending National Champion, so I can see the committee giving them a one-seed to invoke the "Title Defense" narrative.
• I feel like the NCAA committee will give a 1-seed to the ACC champion for coming out on top in the toughest conference, even though it could be more of a product of unbalanced scheduling than team quality. Let's not forget, the ACC got two 1-seeds last year and ended up dominating the right half of the bracket.
• The final what-if 1-seed: Gonzaga runs the table in the WCC. Assuming no table-running in the other power conferences (P12, B12, and B10), it would be hard to deny a 32-0/31-1 Gonzaga team from a 1-seed.

If you are untested and still get a 1-seed, then favorites to win the tournament (who actually get tested during the regular season) get lower seeds.

• The obvious front-runner in this category would be DUKE. Their conference schedule features 7 road games against my projected top ACC teams. This might be too much for their newly utilized freshman class, but give these players a neutral court in March and they could be singing a much different tune.
• Another not-so-obvious candidate could be UCLA. With home-and-away games against top teams in their conference (who may have under-performed in the non-conference due to injuries/suspensions: ARI and ORE), this team may take their licks in January and February, but come March, Lonzo Ball may repeat in the fashion of Carmelo Anthony and take down giants in route to a title.
• A dark horse that has shown bright as well as stumbled in the first 40 days would be IND. With keys wins over KU (neut) and UNC (home), IND has shown they can beat the Tier 1 teams. They have also shown they can lose to sub-tier teams, like BUT (neut) and INFW (road). If they continue this shine and stumble pattern in the B10, they could positioned along the 3-6 lines. If they can beat (or at least get favorable match-ups against) the R64 and R32 opponents, we already know they can beat the likes of S16, E8 and F4 teams.

For one final rub of the crystal ball, I'll make an overall prediction of the bracket. Combining everything listed above into a big picture prediction, I'm looking at a fairly stable tournament.

• An average number of upsets on opening weekend (5 first round, 1 second round)
• Since top-tier teams mostly advance, I think the R-P-S determinations take hold and lower seeds get some victories (maybe one or two 4/5-seeds and possibly one 6/7-seed).
• Favorites take hold in the E8, even though they didn't look like favorites when the bracket came out. (Our Stat Sheet, rules of advancement, and our models tell us who the favorites are).
• The two F4 games and the National Championship will also come down to R-P-S match-up determination. Although the best team on paper may be around in the final weekend, it doesn't look like this year is one of those year's where the statistical best wins.

If everything in this article holds to expectations, the only thing I will be waiting for is the favorites to establish themselves (Scenario #2 in blue highlight). Thanks for reading, Merry Christmas to all, and I'll have another post on January 4.