Thursday, December 31, 2009

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone! Be safe and have fun tonight.

Come Monday, the Bracket Project moves into conference mode as you can expect bracket updates at least every Monday from here on out and, perhaps more importantly, the matrix gets updated once a day everyday as brackets from other sites are updated.

Remember, if you're a new bracketologist who would like to submit a site to the matrix, follow the principles described a few posts ago. And if you just follow the site, start up a discussion at the Facebook group.

See you Monday!

Monday, December 28, 2009

Bracket - December 28

Quiet past couple of weeks as we celebrate the holidays. It's during these quiet weeks where small streaks get noticed. Just look at USC. With their new transfer Gerrity, they are rolling with a 6-game winning streak with wins over Tennessee, St. Mary's, and UNLV. And with the Pac-10 ripe for the taking, USC is in a great position. Can't overlook the 4 losses yet (which is why they're not in the field) but they have a chance to make a great statement against the Arizona schools at home this week.

On the flip side, Florida was in danger of falling out of the field with their own 3-game losing streak (Syracuse, Richmond, and South Alabama). They settled at an 11 seed. Luckily, they've got 2 easy games before a road test at North Carolina State and the start of the SEC schedule.

http://bracketproject.50webs.com/PDFS/122809.pdf

Monday, December 21, 2009

Bracket - December 14

I'm slowly catching up. Obviously, this bracket is week old, so if I was re-doing it for today, I'd consider taking out Cincinnati, Memphis, and Seton Hall. I'd consider putting in a host of teams including Wake Forest and Richmond. But alas, I'm not studying it too much since my next bracket comes out next Monday, the 28th. Also, at that point, new brackets will start being released every Monday.

http://bracketproject.50webs.com/PDFS/121409.pdf

Sunday, December 6, 2009

BCS 2009

Now for my annual BCS post. Today's announcement that Alabama and Texas will play for the BCS championship may satisfy most people but what about TCU? Cincinnati? Boise State? As I've said before, a playoff is inevitable but probably won't be done in the near future. But sometime, the next step has to be a plus-one. This is how I would do it. It's the same thing as last year with a couple of tweaks.

1. Promote the Cotton Bowl to BCS status. This will keep the 10 team system the BCS has.
2. The champion from each of the BCS conferences receives an automatic berth.
3. The top non-BCS conference champion (or Notre Dame) will receive an automatic berth provided it is ranked higher than the lowest ranked BCS conference champion. If this lowest ranked team is unranked in the BCS, then the non-BCS team (or Notre Dame) must be ranked in the top 25.
4. Fill out the rest of the lineup with the highest ranked teams remaining in BCS order. Ignore the two-team limit per conference.
5. Pull out the Pac-10 and Big 10 champions and place them in the Rose Bowl.
6. The top 4 teams remaining will play each other. The highest ranked of these 4 will play the lowest ranked team of these 4 that avoids a rematch. Then the remaining two teams will play each other. The same will apply to the bottom 4 teams.
7. Once matchups are determined, assign them to bowls. Apply conference affiliations (Big 12-Fiesta, ACC-Orange, SEC-Sugar) with the remaining game to the Cotton Bowl. If a bowl needs to give up a conference affiliated with them to another bowl, that bowl will have priority over the Cotton Bowl.
8. Play the games!
9. After the games are played, run the BCS system one more time and pit the top 2 teams against each other for a BCS champion.

So how would it work this year?

This year's BCS conference champions were 1. Alabama (SEC), 2. Texas (Big 12), 3. Cincinnati (Big East), 7. Oregon (Pac-10), 8. Ohio State (Big Ten), and 10. Georgia Tech (ACC).

The highest ranked non-BCS conference champion was 4. TCU and it gets an automatic berth since it's ranked higher than Georgia Tech.

The highest ranked teams left in the BCS are 5. Florida, 6. Boise State, and 10. Iowa.

Thus, the matchups would be:

Rose: 7. Oregon vs. 8. Ohio State
Fiesta: 2. Texas vs. 3. Cincinnati
Sugar: 1. Alabama vs. 4. TCU
Orange: 9. Georgia Tech vs. 6. Boise State
Cotton: 5. Florida vs. 10. Iowa

Then use the BCS after these games are played and then match the top 2 teams. It allows TCU and Cincinnati to at least have a shot at the championship. Ok, it doesn't solve Boise State, but years down the line when a playoff is viable, that problem will be solved too.

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Bracket - November 30

Lots of changes fill this week's bracket. The big winners were Syracuse, which won the Coaches v. Cancer tournament beating California and North Carolina in the process, Florida, with its impressive win over Michigan State, and UNLV, which is undefeated and has a win over Louisville. Portland also made its first appearance in the bracket, but has since lost to Portland State to fall back to earth.

Chief among the losers is UCLA. Sure, it lost a few key guys from last year and the rest are pretty much injured, but the Bruins were still expected to contend for best team in the Pac-10 behind Washington and Cal. But losses to Cal State Fullerton, Portland, Butler, and Long Beach State mean they may be fighting to avoid last place in the conference, which itself is going through a down year.

Next bracket will be posted on December 14.

http://bracketproject.50webs.com/PDFS/113009.pdf