Bracketology Update 1/8/15

ESPN’s Joe Lunardi released his first bracket of 2015 on Monday and now he has released his first “Bracket Math” of the New Year.

Here is what Lunardi has through games on January 7th:

CAPS=Current or projected conference leader (automatic qualifier).

Seed list read left to right then right to left

• First Four Out: 69.-Syracuse, 70-Connecticut, 71-Indiana, 72-South Carolina
• Next Four Out: 73-Illinois, 74-Miami (FL), 75-Oklahoma St, 76-Davidson

Conference Breakdown

• Big East (8)
• Big 12 (6)
• ACC (5)
• Big Ten (5)
• Pac-12 (4)
• SEC (4)
• Atlantic 10 (3)
• American (3)
• Mountain West (3)
• West Coast (3)
• Conference USA (2)
• Missouri Valley (2)

Here is what Lunardi had on December 15th for the Big East:

• 07 – Villanova
• 18 – Butler
• 25 – St. John’s
• 26 – Georgetown
• 30 – Seton Hall
• 38 – Xavier
• 72 – Providence (First Four Out)
• Creighton (Considered)

Here is what he has on January 8th for the Big East:

• 07 – Villanova
• 21 – Seton Hall
• 27 – Providence
• 28 – Butler
• 33 – Xavier
• 34 – Georgetown
• 38 – St. John’s
• 59 – Depaul

Lunardi qualifies DePaul’s entrance to the field by re-iterating his rule is that teams that are in 1st place in their league are considered the automatic qualifier for that league. You can see by DePaul’s low number of 59 and the company that far down the S-curve (S.C. Upstate, Louisiana-Lafayette, St. Francis (NY), etc.) that they would certainly not be in the field if not for being considered the automatic qualifier. Of the Big East’s 7 other teams in the field Lunardi classifies only 2 as being “solid”, meaning they have current tournament odds at 75% or better. The other 5 are considered part of the bubble with teams 25-40 on this S-curve making up that bubble.
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Mike Hopkins

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