The (NCAA) Killing Field

In what was a terrible week for ranked teams, I was asked if the chaos of the past seven days was good or bad for Marquette. With that in mind, I'll open with a link to my last bracket. Why? Because this wasn't just a bad week for ranked teams but it was the worst week I remember for teams in the field. Generally speaking, the 46 teams seeded one through eleven are good enough to earn an at-large bid. In the week since my last bracket, 27 of those teams combined to lose 34 games. Here is the record breakdown by seed line and the number of teams on each seed line that lost last week:

Seed	Record	Teams w/ losses
1	4-4	2
2	5-3	2
3	6-1	1
4	6-2	1
5	3-5	4
6	4-4	4
7	6-2	2
8	4-3	3
9	7-1	1
10	5-1	1
11	1-8	6

That's a lot of upheaval. Two 1-seeds dropped off that line. Each current 2-seed was on a different line last week. Every team on BOTH the 5 and 6 lines lost at least once. At the bottom of the bracket, every single team in my last 6 in lost at least once. For Marquette, it's safe to say when 14 of the 19 teams directly in front of you lose, it's good. And when the teams that are chasing you from behind also lose? Yeah...also good.

I've discussed how difficult this field is to seed. The reason for this is the minute differences between teams that are considered "safely in" and teams that are on the wrong side of the bubble. Consider the resumes of 5-seed Ohio State and NIT 1-seed (and first team out) Tennessee:

	Ohio State	Tennessee
NET	19	63
kenpom	13	56
SOS	39	49
Record	12-6	11-6
Quadrant 1	2-6	2-6
Quadrant 2	3-0	1-0
Quadrant 3	1-0	2-0
Quadrant 4	6-0	6-0

The computer numbers differ, but in terms of schedule difficulty, record, and performance against quadrants, the teams are virtually identical. When you dig into the computer numbers and the best victories, Ohio State has the edge, but that these teams are so close shows just how jumbled the field is. I would love to say this is a rarity, but these are the type of differences that make it difficult to place teams in every single line.

That said, this provides a huge opportunity for anyone who can put together a winning streak. Seton Hall's current 8-game winning streak took them from a 10-seed all the way up to a 3-seed. Marquette's 2 wins this week moved them up 2 full seed lines. Keep stringing wins together and they could move up quickly.

In a season that started with the #1 ranking being a game of hot potato and continued with the collective rankings not being worth the bandwidth the AP publishes them with, all it will take is a team going on a run to see their fortunes soar. Marquette has just as good a chance as anyone, because if the season to date is any indicator, teams are going to keep losing and the protected seeds will be anyone's to claim. Here's the updated, post-chaos S-Curve:

1-Seeds: 1-BAYLOR 2-GONZAGA 3-SAN DIEGO STATE 4-Kansas

2-Seeds: 8-Louisville 7-FLORIDA STATE 6-Butler 5-Duke
3-Seeds: 9-DAYTON 10-MICHIGAN STATE 11-SETON HALL 12-West Virginia
4-Seeds: 16-Kentucky 15-Maryland 14-Villanova 13-Oregon
5-Seeds: 17-Iowa 18-Creighton 19-Auburn 20-Ohio State
6-Seeds: 24-Penn State 23-Michigan 22-Arizona 21-LSU
7-Seeds: 25-Rutgers 26-Memphis 27-Colorado 28-Marquette
8-Seeds: 32-Arkansas 31-Stanford 30-Wisconsin 29-Wichita State
9-Seeds: 33-HOUSTON 34-Virginia Tech 35-USC 36-Indiana
10-Seeds: 40-Illinois 39-Texas Tech 38-NC State 37-Oklahoma
11-Seeds: 41-DePaul 42-Purdue 43-Florida/44-Byu 45-St. Mary's/46-Minnesota
12-Seeds: 50-YALE 49-EAST TENNESSEE STATE 48-LIBERTY 47-NORTHERN IOWA
13-Seeds: 51-AKRON 52-STEPHEN F AUSTIN 53-NEW MEXICO STATE 54-WESTERN KENTUCKY
14-Seeds: 58-UC IRVINE 57-COLGATE 56-STONY BROOK 55-WRIGHT STATE
15-Seeds: 59-MURRAY STATE 60-WILLIAM & MARY 61-LITTLE ROCK 62-WINTHROP
16-Seeds: 68-NORFOLK STATE/67-MONMOUTH 66-TEXAS SOUTHERN/65-ST FRANCIS (PA) 64-MONTANA 63-NORTH DAKOTA STATE

Last Four Byes: Texas Tech, Illinois, DePaul, Purdue
Last Four In: Florida, BYU, St. Mary's, Minnesota
NIT 1-Seeds: Tennessee, St. Louis, Georgetown, Richmond
NIT 2-Seeds: Xavier, Virginia, VCU, Washington

Multi-bid Leagues
Big 10: 12
Big East: 6
Big 12: 5
Pac-12: 5
SEC: 5
ACC: 5
WCC: 3
American: 3