Bracketology: SEC dominates top of projected bracket, but Big Ten has more teams in field of 68

The selection committee is really going to have its hands full if the trend of dominance from the SEC and Big Ten continues. Each league has a double-digit number of teams (Big Ten with 13, SEC with 11) in the projected field, which makes bracketing a nightmare. 

There is no way to follow the rules precisely and keep the seven SEC teams in the top 16 separated. However, I did manage to keep them apart well enough to avoid a potential matchup prior to the Elite Eight.

The Big Ten has so many teams in the middle of the bracket that I did need to do a bit of seed shuffling to keep them apart. The committee only does that as a last resort.

Here’s a look at the teams from the Big Ten and SEC in the projected bracket.

Big Ten 

SEC

Bracketology top seeds

Check out Palm’s bracket and full field of 68 at the Bracketology hub.

The top four overall seeds are unchanged from last month’s previous bracket. Auburn, Tennessee, Iowa State and Duke are still on the top line.

I am still not putting much weight on the metrics, especially the Margin Of Victory-based ones like KenPom.com and the NCAA’s NET. KenPom is trying to predict scoring margins, so obviously, his rankings rely heavily on them. The NET seems to have been designed to correlate to KenPom, so it also relies heavily on MOV.

You can still see some big disparities between NET rankings and résumé quality. The most obvious one is Houston. The Cougars are sixth in the NET and sixth in average scoring margin, but their best win came at No. 118 Oklahoma State. That is Houston’s only Quad 2 or better win, but all three of the Cougars Quad 3 wins have come against teams ranked higher than the Cowboys.

Houston’s three losses have come against Alabama, Auburn and San Diego State by a combined total of 13 points.

Despite the lofty rankings, I have the Cougars as a No. 10 seed in the bracket.

Florida is another example. The Gators are No. 4 in the NET despite a strength of schedule ranking around 250th. However, the Gators are the top-ranked team in average scoring margin, thus the gaudy NET ranking. Florida, a No. 5 seed in the bracket, travels to Kentucky on Saturday. We will learn something about the Gators then.

Things like this will get sorted out as we go deeper into conference play. I always feel like you don’t really know anything about a team until it starts playing conference road games. Familiarity breeds contempt.

Hitting the road for first time

There are still four teams that have yet to play a road game. One of those is undefeated Oklahoma. The Sooners do not fare as well in scoring margin, so they are 42nd in the NET, but they have neutral-court wins over Michigan and Arizona. Oklahoma is a No. 3 seed in the bracket and will travel to Alabama on Saturday for its first road game of the season. 

Colorado, Dayton and Texas Tech are the other three teams that have yet to play a true road game, but each will get their first test on Saturday as well.

Note: This bracket is the first of the twice weekly brackets which will be posted on Mondays and Fridays for about six weeks. After that, they will be updated daily through Selection Sunday.