Predicting the Field

We at pittbasketball.blogspot.com decided to guess the 34 at-large bids. We assumed that the conference regular season champion would win the conference tourneys, unless already decided, as was the case with the WCC. Here's how it looks...

Big East-7 at-large bids

Louisville
Notre Dame
UConn
Marquette
West Virginia
Pitt
Syracuse-Cuse boasts an overall RPI of 51 with an overall SOS of 9. Don’t forget about the OOC RPI and SOS, 19 and 33 respectively. Cuse has been penalized for poor OOC schedules, but not this year.

Why we may be wrong…about Cuse. Home losses to UMass (36) and Rhode Island (58) may not be bad when you look at their RPI rankings, but these are still humans deliberating and the perception of these losses may hurt.

ACC-4

Duke
Clemson
Miami
Virginia Tech-Say what you want about the lack of a tough conference schedule, but they still had a winning record win in what is considered the #1 RPI conference.

Why we may be wrong…about VaTech. Losses to PSU (156), Old Dominion (116), and Richmond (120) are ugh-lee. They also don’t have a marquee win, their best is against Maryland (63), home and away.

SEC-4

Vanderbilt
Mississippi State
Arkansas
Kentucky-It’s hard to ignore their conference record, which included wins over Vanderbilt (7) and Tennessee (1). They obviously started slow with the new coaching regime, but they clearly regrouped.

Why we may be wrong…about Kentucky. Losses to Gardner Webb (205), and San Diego (90) are terrible and the UAB (53) loss in state is also bad. A quick exit in the SEC tourney could really hurt them.

Big 12-5

Kansas
Kansas State
Oklahoma
Baylor
Texas A&M-They’re .500 or better in the #2 ranked conference. Wins over Texas (5) and Oklahoma (26) help bolster their chances.

Why we may be wrong…about Texas A&M. If a team has to be eliminated from the B12, it won’t be KSU with Michael Beasley. A&M did not lose to bad teams, but they lost some games by big numbers, including a 27-point loss to Texas, a 27-point loss to Oklahoma, and a 21-point loss to KSU.

Pac 10-4

Stanford
Washington State
USC
Arizona-They played the 2nd most difficult schedule in the country, the 7th most difficult OOC schedule in the country and still put up 17 wins.

Why we may be wrong…about Arizona. They still lost 13 games including one game to Washington (107) and one game to Virginia (106). Sometimes playing a tough schedule isn’t enough, sometimes you need a marquee win, and Zona lacks one.

Big 10-4

Purdue
Indiana
Michigan State
Ohio State-OSU beat Purdue (36) and Michigan State (15) back-to-back to get back on track. The 21st best SOS doesn’t hurt either.

Why we may be wrong…about Ohio State. Losses to Michigan (181), Iowa (184), and Minnesota (100) are bad to very bad.

WCC-2

Gonzaga
St. Mary’s-an OOC RPI of 17 and an overall RPI of 38 is hard to ignore. Wins over Drake (12) and Gonzaga (30) are very strong.

Why we may be wrong…about St. Mary’s. Losing in the first round of the West Coast Conference Tourney doesn’t look good, even if it was against eventual winner San Diego. They lost to San Diego (90) twice and they have a SOS of 137, ouch.

A10-1

UMass

MVC-1

Illinois State

Mountain West-1

UNLV

CUSA-1

UAB