Big East Bracketology Update 1/26/15

Monday means new brackets from both Joe Lunardi and Jerry Palm. Lunardi dropped 1 Big East team out of his bracket so that the league now has 6 teams in the field. Palm still has 7 Big East teams in but Xavier remains in the precarious “Last Four In” category.

Here is a breakdown of Lunardi’s latest bracket:

• Villanova – #2 seed in East vs. #15 Albany – 7th on S-curve (was 6th)
• Georgetown – #5 seed in South vs. #12 Western Kentucky – 18th on S-curve – AQ for Big East (was 20th)
• Providence – #6 seed in Midwest vs. #11 George Washington/Old Dominion – 22nd on S-curve (no change)
• Butler – #6 seed in South vs. #11 Tulsa – 23rd on S-curve (was 24th)
• Seton Hall – #10 seed in West vs. #7 San Diego State – 39th on S-curve – On the Bubble (was 33rd)
• Xavier – #11 seed in West vs. #6 Texas – 41st on S-curve – On the Bubble (was 45th – Last 4 In)
• St. John’s – OUT – 69th on S-curve – First 4 Out (was 46th – Last Four In)

Lunardi dropped St. John’s out of the field after their loss to Duke on Sunday which seems harsh on it’s face but he talks about St. John’s in his “Bracket Math” article:

St. John’s has seemingly done everything right to get back to the NCAA tournament. The Red Storm scheduled well, were decent in non-conference play and are headed to an acceptable numerical profile (current 51/13/43 RPI/SOS/BPI combo).

But here’s the rub: the Johnnies aren’t going to win enough games (or, more precisely, enough of the right games). Forget about being on the wrong side of history yesterday. If the Red Storm hold on against Duke, as they should, the remainder of their season is entirely different. Instead, St. John’s will have to bank on flipping a 2-4 Big East record…..So for everyone who Tweeted me today that Duke was a “good loss,” I’ll say only that too many of them put your team in the N.I.T.

The rest of the league didn’t have a ton of movement with the only other significant movers being Seton Hall moving down 6 spots on the S-curve and Xavier moving up 4 spots.

Here is the full “Bracket Math”:

Here’s a breakdown of Palm’s latest bracket:

• Villanova – #2 seed in East vs. #15 NCCU
• Georgetown – #5 seed in Midwest vs. #12 Western Kentucky
• Butler – #5 seed in South vs. #12 Ohio State/NC State
• Providence – #7 seed in South vs. #10 Washington
• Seton Hall – #9 seed in East vs. #8 Cincinnati
• St. John’s – #9 seed in South vs. #SMU
• Xavier – #11 seed in West vs. #11 Michigan State

Conference Breakdown

Lunardi:

• Big 12 (8)
• ACC (7)
• Big East (6)
• Big Ten (6)
• SEC (4)
• American (3)
• Atlantic 10 (3)
• Mountain West (3)
• Pac-12 (3)
• Conference USA (2)
• Missouri Valley (2)

Palm:

The 2015 Bracket Matrix

BracketMatrix.com is a very informative site and I think it adds value to the bracketology discussion so I’ll be featuring a section in these bracketology updates with information like average seed, number of brackets Providence appears in and a few other things. The appeal of BracketMatrix.com is that they are sort of like a composite bracket.

• Bracket Matrix Average Seed for Providence: 7.13
• Numbers of Brackets Providence appears in: 68/68
• Best Seed: 3
• Worst Seed: 12
• Last updated: 1/25/15 11:01am

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Mike Hopkins

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