The Bracket Project

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Welcome Back! 2011-12 Edition

Next week marks the beginning of a brand new season of college basketball and another edition of The Bracket Project. My first bracket projection won't be released until November 28 but watch out for the first release of the matrix on November 7.

If you want to contribute, please read this:

1. You need to set up a web site to place your bracket that will be consistent throughout the season. A blog will do. A web site will most definitely do. A bracket posted on a message board will not do. The link will change frequently and will get lost in various discussions, making it difficult for the average reader to find it. (Exception: A message board devoted exclusively to bracketology.) Also, you can't post it on Facebook or some other social networking site because not everyone can access it. However, in order to promote discussion, an email address or some comment platform must be provided so that readers can praise or criticize your bracket.

2. You have to tell me where your site is. I don't have a sixth sense when it comes to finding these things. I rely on you and readers like you to tell me what kind of sites to add to this page.

3. The NCAA sets up procedures and principles for building a bracket. Read them! A seriously flawed bracket won't be posted. However, if your seedings are out of the norm, I'll still most likely post it provided that the principles are followed and you have an explanation as to why you've built the bracket like you did. I reserve the right to not post a bracket with something like a winless team as a #1 seed.

4. Please date-stamp your bracket. Brackets of a certain age will be removed from the list, and if there's no date-stamp, obviously I can't tell when your bracket was updated.

5. To make it easier on me, please format your bracket so that at least half of it can be seen on the screen at any one time. You can make it even easier for me by publishing a seed list of your 68 teams. Brackets must have at least 48 seeded teams to be listed in the matrix. Sites that merely list teams with no seeding can be linked to the page but will not be added to the matrix. To be listed in the final matrix of the season, you must have all 68 seeded teams.

6. No new sites will be added to the 2012 page after March 1, 2012 unless you appear in the rankings page (linked to the side), in which case, you will be grandfathered in. In addition, no bracket will be accepted to the final matrix of the season after the beginning of the Selection Sunday show.

7. Link to my site! I've linked to yours!

8. I'm only one guy. If this could pay me what I get at my regular job, I'd update this site 24/7. That simply is not the case. If someone else can do this better, I'll gladly step aside, but from the looks of it, I'm the only (crazy) one. So if you don't see your site on here, an update hasn't been done for a while or I don't respond to you, I hope you'll understand why.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

The Bracket Project Predictions - 2011

Here are my predictions for this year's bracket.

Clemson, USC, UNC-Asheville and UTSA are my First Four winners.

My final four consists of Ohio State, Kansas, Pittsburgh, and Texas with KU over OSU for the championship.

http://bracketproject.50webs.com/PDFS/Bracket%20Project%20Prediction%20-%202011.pdf

Sunday, March 13, 2011

The Bracket Matrix Results - 2011

Bracketologists - Please check the matrix and double-check your scores in case I made a mistake. I did just look at 89 brackets today.

Congratulations to Jordan Schwartz at FOX Sports for having the highest Paymon score among all bracketologists this year. He was the only one to miss one team in the bracket (nobody had a perfect bracket).

Bracket Facts, 68&16 Sportscast, Ivar, and Ryan had the most teams seeded correctly at 38 out of 68.

Countdown to March had the most teams seeded within one at 59 out of 68.

The average Paymon score (3 points for each team picked, 2 points for each team seeded correctly, and 1 point for each teams seeded within one) was 311.6. Joe Lunardi and his team of bracketologists were slightly below average at 310.

Historical rankings will be updated ~~Monday~~ (edit: Wednesday at the latest).

Final NIT Bracket - 2011

Here's the NIT bracket. Hope it doesn't turn out as bad as the NCAA prediction.

http://bracketproject.50webs.com/PDFS/NIT031311FINAL.pdf

Final Bracket 2011

Here it is. Read it and weep.

Ohio State, Kansas, Pittsburgh, and Duke are the top seeds. USC was the last team in over Alabama.

Watch for matrix updates all the way up to the selection show.

http://bracketproject.50webs.com/PDFS/031311%20-%20FINAL.pdf

Saturday, March 12, 2011

NCAA + NIT Update - March 12

For the NCAA bracket, I moved Penn State and Alabama into the bracket. I may waver a bit on Penn State tonight if they lose today and after that very slow and ugly win over Wisconsin (but hey, a win's a win right?). Falling out are St. Mary's and Boston College.

In the NIT, with the addition of two more automatics at the bottom, Drexel was the odd team out (UTEP left too as the CUSA rep in the NCAA, but Tulsa was left out of the NIT bracket).

One final bracket on Selection Sunday with matrix updates throughout the weekend are on tap.

NCAA - 3/12 for games thru 3/11:

1 - Ohio State, Kansas, Duke, Pittsburgh
2 - Notre Dame, San Diego State, BYU, North Carolina
3 - Purdue, Texas, Syracuse, Louisville
4 - Kentucky, Florida, Wisconsin, Connecticut
5 - Georgetown, West Virginia, Arizona, St. John's
6 - UNLV, Cincinnati, Kansas State, Vanderbilt
7 - Xavier, George Mason, Texas A&M, Temple
8 - Washington, Villanova, Utah State, Old Dominion
9 - UCLA, Missouri, Marquette, Illinois
10 - Michigan State, Butler, Gonzaga, Michigan
11 - Clemson, Virginia Tech, Florida State, Tennessee
12 - Richmond, Georgia, Colorado, Penn State, Alabama, Belmont
13 - Harvard, Oakland, UTEP, Bucknell
14 - Morehead State, Long Island, Long Beach State, Kent State
15 - Indiana State, Wofford, St. Peter's, Northern Colorado
16 - NC-Asheville, Boston University, McNeese State, Arkansas-Little Rock, Hampton, Alabama State

NIT - 3/12 for games thru 3/11

http://bracketproject.50webs.com/PDFS/NIT031211.pdf