I intend to join the whole bracket madness fray a little later with regard to my picks, and sleepers, and so on. But I figured before I did that, it’d make sense to take a look at how the formula I used to pick the conference tournaments fared.
We Nailed It:
Big South Conference: Winthrop (7-0 overall)
Patriot League: American (7-0 overall)
Big Sky: Portland State (5-0 overall)
Pac 10: UCLA (7-1 overall)
ACC: North Carolina (7-2 overall)
We Sort Of Got It Right:
Atlantic Sun: Belmont (5-0 in projected games)
Sun Belt: Western Kentucky (5-2 in projected games)
Colonial: George Mason (6-2 in projected games)
Southern: Davidson (4-3 in projected games)
Conference USA: Memphis (4-3 in projected games)
Big 12: Kansas (5-2 in projected games)
Can’t Say We Didn’t Warn You (teams to “keep an eye on”):
Northeast: Mount St. Mary’s (3-1 in projected games; projected champion: Robert Morris)
West Coast: San Diego (3-2 in projected games; projected champion: Gonzaga)
Mid-Eastern: Coppin State (8-1 in projected games; projected champion: Morgan State)
We Blew It:
Horizon League: Cleveland State (4-2 in projected games; tournament champion: Butler)
Ohio Valley: Murray State (5-1 in projected games; tournament champion: Austin Peay)
Missouri Valley: Illinois State (3-3 in projected games; tournament champion: Drake)
America East: Albany (4-2 in projected games; tournament champion: Maryland-Baltimore County)
Metro Atlantic: Rider (4-3 in projected games; tournament champion: Siena)
Summit League: IUPUI (4-2 in projected games; tournament champion: Oral Roberts)
Western: New Mexico State (6-1 in projected games; tournament champion: Boise State)
Atlantic 10: Xavier (5-3 in projected games; tournament champion: Temple)
Big East: Louisville (4-3 in projected games; tournament champion: Pittsburgh)
Big West: Cal-Northridge (1-2 in projected games; tournament champion: Cal-Fullerton)
Mid-American: Western Michigan (2-5 in projected games; tournament champion: Kent State)
Mountain West: New Mexico (2-2 in projected games; tournament champion: UNLV — please refer to THIS GUY in the future for all Mountain West Conference analysis.)
SWAC: Alabama State (2-2 in projected games; tournament winner: Mississippi Valley State)
Southland: Sam Houston State (2-2 in projected games; tournament champion: UT Arlington)
SEC: Tennessee (4-3 in projected games; tournament champion: Georgia)
Big Ten: Michigan State (3-4 in projected games; tournament champion: Wisconsin)
So, we got 14 out of 30 right — or sort of right — and put up an overall “winning percentage” in games we projected ahead of time of .689. Perhaps our estimation of being worthy of the bubble was a bit inflated after all.
