Category: Tourney Info

2022 Tournament Preview

The 83rd NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament is about to get underway!

Two teams make their tournament debuts this season: the Longwood University Lancers and the Bryant University Bulldogs.  Longwood (14-seed, 22-6 record against div. 1 opponents), out of Farmville, Virginia, won the Big South regular season and conference tournament titles.  Bryant (16-seed, 21-9), out of Smithfield, Rhode Island, won the Northeast Conference Tournament and regular season championships.  Since 1990, 96 teams have made their NCAA tourney debut, but only six of those 96 won a first-round game in their first trip. The last to do it was Northwestern in 2017.

Michigan State (7-seed, 22-12), under head coach Tom Izzo, earned its 24th consecutive tournament berth.  Izzo ties Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski for the longest streak of consecutive bids for a head coach.  Krzyzewski’s streak was ended last year.

The Montana State Bobcats (14-seed, 25-7) enter the tournament for the first time in 26 years.  This is the longest absence of any team in the field.

This is the first year that no team from the Big Ten, Atlantic Coast or Southeastern Conference received a 1 seed.  This year’s top seeds – Gonzaga, Arizona, Baylor and Kansas are all from west of the Mississippi River.

The Gonzaga Bulldogs (26-3) enter the tournament as a 1 seed for the third year in a row, and for the fifth time in nine tournaments.

Five of the past six national champions (and eight of the last twelve) have come from the South Region.  The University of Arizona Wildcats are the top seed of the South this year.  It is their sixth tourney as a 1 seed.

No defending champion has made it past the Sweet Sixteen since Florida in 2007.  Baylor (1-seed, 26-6) has the seed position to break this curse, but their player injuries are well documented.  In the past four tournaments, the defending champ was eliminated in the first or second round (4-seed Virginia in 2021, 6-seed Villanova in 2019, 2-seed North Carolina in 2018, and 1-seed Villanova in 2017).

This is the first time since official seeding numbers were issued in 1979 that the Atlantic Coast Conference has only one team among the top 4 seeds (Duke, 2-seed, 28-6).

Notre Dame (21-10) previously made NCAA tournament appearances at seeds numbers 1 through 10, and now enters as an 11 seed.

A team seeded 4th or worse has made the Final Four in each of the last eleven seasons. The Auburn Tigers, Loyola Ramblers, and UCLA Bruins are the three most recent teams to do so, and all return to the tournament this year.

Number 5 seeds are the only seed of the top eight that has not yet won a championship.  This year’s 5 seeds are Houston (28-5), Iowa (25-9), Saint Mary’s (24-7), and Connecticut (23-9).

2021 Tournament Final

Congratulations to the Baylor University Bears (28-2) for their first NCAA men’s basketball championship, earned in their 13th tournament appearance.  The Gonzaga University Bulldogs (31-1) fell just short in a bid to complete an undefeated season while trying to win their first national title.  They lost their 2nd tournament final game (2017 loss to North Carolina).  The 1976 Indiana Hoosiers remain the last team to complete an undefeated season with a tourney championship.

Baylor’s championship is the 4th for the Big 12 Conference — the first for a member school other than Kansas.

For the second-straight tournament a first-time champion has won the tournament.  The last occurrence of consecutive first-time victors was 2002 (Maryland) and 2003 (Syracuse).

Scrutinous Score achieved the highest bracket score (104) compared to the other major team rating metrics — beating KenPom, Sagarin, Torvik, NCAA NET, SRS, Net Rating, and chalk.  The bracket scores for each of the team rating metrics is presented on the Bracket Master Picks Page for every tournament season since 1998.  The (i) button to the left of the ‘Scoring System’ option will display these bracket scores.

Number 1 Seeds have won the last four tournaments.  Number 1s last won four consecutive from 2007 to 2010.  A five-straight-year streak by Number 1s occurred from 1992 to 1996.  Number 1 Seeds have won 25 of the 42 (60%) tourneys that assigned official seed numbers (all tournaments after 1978).

2021 Tournament Second Week

The 2021 tournament has continued to be all about upstarts.  No team that has won a national championship in the 21st century remains standing.  UCLA is the only one of the Final Four teams to have ever won the championship.  Baylor advanced to the Final Four for the first time in 71 years (1950).  Houston last made the semi-finals in 1984.

The 2021 tournament set a record for the highest aggregate seed total ever to make the Sweet Sixteen.  (The sum of the seed numbers of all sixteen teams.)  The 2021 aggregate seed total is 91, topping the 89 aggregate set in 1986.

Seven of the eight teams in the Elite Eight reside west of the Mississippi River.  For the first time ever, all of the Final Four teams hail from west of the Mississippi.  The last Final Four with three teams from the west was 1995.

UCLA became the second team to reach the Final Four after entering the tournament from the First Four, joining Virginia Commonwealth of 2011.  With UCLA’s regional final victory over Michigan, number 11 seeds are now 4-4 against #1 seeds.

The semi-final matchup between Baylor and Houston will be the fifth Final Four game between teams from the same state, joining: Kentucky-Louisville 2012, Ohio State-Cincinnati 1961 & 1962, and Penn State-La Salle 1954.

This is only the fourth tournament that an Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) team has not reached the Elite Eight since 1980.  The only other years without an ACC team were 2003, 2006, and 2014.   ACC teams finish the tournament with a 4-7 record.  This is their fewest wins since 1979.

2021 Tournament First Week

Oral Roberts became only the 2nd #15 seed to advance to the Sweet Sixteen.  Their duo of Kevin Obanor and Max Abmas have scored 113 of Oral Roberts’s 156 total tournament points (72.4%).  Florida Gulf Coast in 2013 was the previous #15 to advance to the second week.

Two teams collected their first-ever victories in the tournament: Abilene Christian and North Texas.

Lots of upsets should have been expected this year because many teams made their out-of-conference schedule load much lighter due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  However, the performance disparity of certain top conferences remains shocking.

The Big Ten conference led the field by receiving nine tournament berths, but their first week was disastrous, going 7-8 with only one survivor (#1 seed Michigan).  Big Ten top seeds that have been eliminated include a #1, two #2s, and a #4.  The Big Ten did not perform uniformly well in the 2019 tournament, going 13-8 – led by a Michigan State Final Four run, and Purdue reaching the Elite Eight.

Meanwhile, the Pac-12 is 10-1 with four teams remaining (Southern California, Oregon, UCLA, Oregon State).  The conference was very poorly seeded in 2019 and went 4-3 with only Oregon reaching the round of sixteen.

This season’s highly touted Big 12 is 7-6 with only one survivor (Baylor).

In recent years the ACC has been a powerhouse, but with this tournament they are just 4-5 with two teams standing (Florida State, Syracuse).

2021 Tournament Bracket Announced

The 82nd NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament field has been announced!

The Big Ten conference leads the field with 9 berths, including 5 teams seeded #1 through #4.  The Big 12 also has 5 teams seeded #1-4 among their 7 total berths.

Two teams make their tournament debuts this season: the Grand Canyon University Antelopes and the University of Hartford Hawks.  Grand Canyon (14-6) out of Phoenix, AZ won the Western Athletic Conference Tournament and regular season title.  Hartford (15-8) from West Hartford, CT won the America East Conference Tournament.

This season marks UCLA’s 50th NCAA Tournament berth (3rd most) and Villanova’s 40th.  Villanova passes Indiana for the 8th most tournament appearances.  Kansas extends its streak of consecutive tournament appearances to 31 years.  Duke’s consecutive streak ends at 24 seasons.

The COVID-19 pandemic still hovers over these proceedings.  Three teams (Duke, Kansas, and Virginia) withdrew from their conference tournament due to positive cases within their programs.  The possibility exists that these teams or others may be declared ineligible due to virus issues.  The NCAA has documented rules for declaring teams ineligible due to positive tests within seven days of the tournament start.  Ineligible teams will be replaced in the field prior to the tournament start, but once underway, a disqualified team will cause their opponent to automatically advance.

I believe the situations of Duke, Kansas, and Virginia demonstrate that conference tournaments should not have been held so close to the start of the national tournament.  There are no guarantees about how the virus might spread, but sending eight-plus team entourages to a single site within days of the national tournament shows that “hope” was the containment strategy for the NCAA and its conferences.

The effected teams and tournament organizers can now only hope that their programs remain eligible and that the virus was not spread to their opponents and the other teams sharing the arena and its locker rooms.  The fairness and integrity of the national tournament is at stake.  The need to cancel a game and advance a team puts the fairness of the tournament at question.  Was the ACC Conference Tournament fair?  Georgia Tech and Florida State both advanced while playing fewer grueling games because their earlier opponents bowed out.  We can only hope that the NCAAs are not tainted by similar forfeits.

2020 Tournament Cancelled

The 2020 NCAA Men’s and Women’s Basketball Tournaments have been cancelled due to concerns about the spreading COVID-19 health threat.  The NCAA will not release an official 2020 tournament bracket, but Bracket Master has published a projected field that includes: the automatic bids that were decided, the top seeded teams in conferences that did complete their tournament, and a projection of at-large berths.

This result is very disappointing for college basketball fans, but must be incredibly frustrating for several teams that were experiencing historically successful seasons.  In particular we will call out the University of Dayton Flyers and the San Diego State Aztecs along with their consensus All-American players Obi Toppin (Dayton) and Malachi Flynn (SD State).  It’s a shame we won’t get to see these teams compete for a national title.

2019 Tournament Final

Congratulations to the University of Virginia Cavaliers for winning their first men’s basketball national championship.  This is the 15th championship for an Atlantic Coast Conference school which ties the total of the Pac-12.

Virginia (35-3) needed to survive a host of pressure-packed tests.  The Cavaliers won its six tournament games by an average of 7.5 points.  This is the third-smallest margin of victory for the champion since the field expanded to 64 teams in 1985.  The slim margin trails only 1985 Villanova and 1997 Arizona.  Three of Virginia’s six games came down to the final possession of regulation, and they trailed in the second half of five games.

ESPN has published a ranking of every NCAA tournament champion, from 1939 to 2019.  I don’t believe the ranking is valuable, but the article does provide a one paragraph overview of each of the 81 champions.  The 2019 Cavaliers are slotted in at number 34.

2019 Tournament First Round Notes

Six teams won a tournament game for the first time in 2019: Belmont, California-Irvine, Central Florida, Liberty, Farleigh Dickinson, and Wofford.

Number 9 seeds went 4-0 against #8s in first round games, with an average margin of victory by 16 points.  A sweep by #9s has happened in four other tournaments: 2001, 1999, 1994, 1989.

Number 12 seeds went 3-1 against #5s in first round games, including wins by Murray State, Liberty, and Oregon.  New Mexico State just missed making it a clean sweep in losing by one point to Auburn.  Historically, Number 12 seeds have won only 32% (50-106) of these matchups.

Number 10 seeds went 3-1 against #7s in first round games, including wins by Florida, Iowa, and Minnesota.  Historically, Number 10 seeds have won only 39% (62-98) of these matchups.

The Cal-Irvine Anteaters were the lowest seed (13) to advance to the second round.

Gonzaga had the largest margin of victory in the first round with their 38 point win over Farleigh Dickinson.

2019 Championship Preview

The 81st NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament Bracket is now official.

Three number 1 seeds were awarded to ACC teams (Virginia, Duke, North Carolina) which ties a record for one conference.  In 2009, the Big East earned three number 1s: Connecticut, Pittsburgh, Louisville.  Four Big East teams reached the Elite Eight that year.

This season marks North Carolina’s 50th NCAA Tournament berth.  They trail only Kentucky (59) for the most appearances.

Two teams make their tournament debuts this season: the Gardner-Webb Runnin’ Bulldogs and the Abilene Christian Wildcats.  Gardner-Webb (23-11) of Boiling Springs, NC won the Big South Conference Tournament.  Abilene Christian (27-6) of Abilene, TX won the Southland Conference Tournament.

The first round game I am most looking forward to is Murray State versus Marquette.  The matchup features the nation’s #3 scorer, Markus Howard (Marquette), and the #9 scorer, Ja Morant (Murray State).

Super Scorers

The 2019 season has seen two players reach an elite NCAA milestone by scoring 3,000 points in a career.  Chris Clemons of Campbell University and Mike Daum of South Dakota State join just eight others to have accomplished the lofty feat.  BracketMaster projects South Dakota State (23-7/13-2) to receive the automatic bid for the Summit League into the NCAA Tournament, seeded as #13.  Campbell (17-11/10-4) is currently projected to miss the field as they sit in 2nd place in the Big South Conference, one game behind Radford, who we have earning the berth with a #13 seed.

It looks unlikely that either the Big South (Conference SRS at 21st of 32) or the Summit League (SRS 25th of 32) will receive a tournament bid outside of their automatic berths, so for the Camels and Jackrabbits it’s going to come down to their respective conference championship tournaments.

South Dakota State has made the NCAA Tournament the last three years, but has never won a tourney game.  Campbell has only made the NCAAs once, in 1992.  We’d love to see these two electrifying scorers, Daum and Clemons, in the field of 68 on college basketball’s biggest stage.

Update:

Both of these Super Scorers missed the tournament for their senior season, despite winning their conference’s regular season title.  South Dakota State lost in the Summit Conference Tournament quarterfinals to Western Illinois.  Campbell lost the Big South Conference Tournament final to Gardner-Webb.  The Gardner-Webb Runnin’ Bulldogs will make their first-ever appearance in the NCAA Tournament.  Campbell and South Dakota State will have their seasons continue in the NIT.