March 13 Seed Watch: Final Steps Toward Bracketing

With just one day left, we’re going to shift the focus of the Seed Watch a bit.

As always, we’ll start with the conferences that will fill the bottom of the S-Curve:

America East Conference (Vermont)
Atlantic Sun Conference (East Tennessee State)
Big South Conference (Winthrop)
Big Sky Conference (Montana)
Big West Conference (UC Santa Barbara)
Mid-American Conference (Akron)
Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (Morgan State)
Northeast Conference (Robert Morris)
Ohio Valley Conference (Murray State)
Patriot League (Lehigh)
Southern Conference (Wofford)
Southland Conference (Sam Houston State)
Southwestern Athletic Conference (Arkansas Pine-Bluff)
Sun Belt Conference (North Texas)
The Summit League (Oakland)

The following conference tournaments have a regular season leader who would likely be close to Cornell on the S-Curve, making them potential enemies:

Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (Siena)
West Coast Conference (St. Mary’s)
Western Athletic Conference (Utah State, New Mexico State)

That leaves us with the following S-Curve:

AUTO BID S-CURVE

61-65 (16s)
East Tennessee State
Robert Morris
Winthrop
Lehigh
Arkansas Pine-Bluff

57-60 (15s)
Morgan State
UC-Santa Barbara
North Texas
Vermont

53-56 (14s)
Montana
Wofford
Oakland
Sam Houston State

51-52 (13s)
Murray State
Akron

47-50 (12/13s)
Cornell
Siena
St. Mary’s
Utah State

Thus, the autobids leave Cornell on the 12/13 fringe with only the Conference USA (Houston over UTEP), Atlantic Coast Conference (Miami or North Carolina State over Duke and Georgia Tech) and Southeastern Conference (Mississippi State over Vanderbilt and Kentucky/Tennessee winner) as automatic qualifiers that could bump Cornell up the S-Curve.

The Big Red’s seed will be based on which of Siena, St. Mary’s and Utah State it can rise past as well as which at larges it can sneak by as well. Right now, the bottom six at larges, according to ESPN’s Bracketology, are Florida, Virginia Tech, San Diego State, Illinois, Rhode Island and Washington. Those 10 teams (including Cornell) will comprise 2 13-seeds and all of the 11 and 12 seed lines.

Here is ESPN’s team-by-team comparison:

TEAM RPI D W-L SOS SOS% R W-L N W-L NCRP NCSS CRP CSS CRK 1-25 26-50 51-100 L12 LRPI OFFQ DEFQ ASM
Utah State .608 26-6 .542 .511 8-5 2-0 .583 .537 .630 .545 10 1-0 1-1 8-3 12-0 .585 2.9 12.1 15.0
Cornell .584 25-4 .477 .491 13-3 3-0 .576 .513 .570 .437 22 0-2 0-0 4-1 11-1 .626 7.3 1.8 9.1
Wake Forest .597 19-10 .588 .541 6-7 0-1 .626 .541 .590 .621 3 3-2 3-2 3-6 6-6 .515 6.2 2.1 8.3
San Diego State .609 22-8 .562 .529 8-7 2-0 .589 .522 .615 .589 6 2-3 1-2 2-1 10-2 .566 3.1 6.0 9.1
Florida .576 21-12 .578 .542 5-5 3-3 .588 .521 .596 .626 4 1-8 2-0 5-2 6-6 .540 2.9 6.0 8.9
Virginia Tech .575 23-8 .504 .539 6-5 2-2 .546 .376 .578 .609 3 0-3 3-1 5-3 7-5 .523 4.7 4.7 9.3
Illinois .563 19-13 .572 .545 6-4 1-5 .556 .518 .592 .609 5 3-3 2-5 1-1 7-5 .513 4.8 2.9 7.6
Siena .602 27-6 .521 .511 9-5 1-1 .541 .529 .627 .516 15 0-3 0-1 6-1 10-2 .561 8.9 1.2 10.1
Washington .586 23-9 .548 .541 4-6 2-1 .627 .563 .569 .539 8 2-2 0-0 5-3 10-2 .512 12.0 -0.1 11.8
Rhode Island .596 23-8 .542 .531 8-6 2-0 .655 .578 .547 .517 7 0-4 1-0 6-2 7-5 .573 8.6 -0.8 7.8

Separating the tightly-compact group above depends on what the committee will ultimately value. Cornell’s RPI is competitive, if not slightly below the average of that group and its quality win profile is among the weakest. It also carries with it that embarrassing loss at The Palestra. But it’s 16-3 road/neutral record can’t be topped and its non-conference RPI is solid.

While many believe that the Big Red could rise as high as an 11 seed, that would require heavy weighting of that road/neutral performance. The safest bet is that Cornell will enter the tourney as a 12, with an 11 seed being slightly more likely than the Big Red falling down to the 13 line.

UPCOMING GAMES (E=Enemy, A=Ally)

March 13, 2010
UTEP vs. Houston (A)
Duke vs. Miami (A)
Georgia Tech vs. North Carolina State (A)
Mississippi State (A) vs. Vanderbilt

Basketball U.

March 13 Seed Watch: Final Steps Toward Bracketing

Michael James

Basketball U.

Basketball U.

Michael James

Post navigation

Basketball U.