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Predict who the NCAA Men’s Basketball Selection Committee puts in the Tournament field will be more difficult in 2021. How do you weigh conferences when there’s been so little inter-conference play?
To help find The Chosen 68, we choose the Wisdom of The Crowd to decide which teams are in and which teams are out of the 2021 NCAA Tournament.
Similar to Nate Silver’s model of predicting elections, we take the data from five bracketologists and update it each week. All bracket makers shall be counted equally, and we’ll ask expert for their 16 teams on the bubble: The last eight in the NCAA Tournament in their estimation, and the first eight out.
Some list this data automatically with their projections, but for the others we reach directly to directly to get their most accurate picture.
Our “model” is pretty simple: 16 points for being the eighth-from-last team in the NCAA tournament, to one point for having seven teams between you and even making the First Four. If a team has an average of 9.0 points or higher, they should reach the NCAA field according to the averages.
Because some teams will avoid the last-eight-in all-together, while other brackets will have that same team on the bubble, we’ll mark teams “Safe” that are ahead of the 16 points available on the top “next four in” line.
Our bracketologists:
Joe Lunardi, ESPN.com (from this tweet)
Chris Dobbertean, Blogging The Bracket
Patrick Stevens, Washington Post
Shelby Mast, Bracketwag.com
Kerry Miller, Bleacher Report
Below are the bubble selections for all our tracked bracketologists:
Bracketology March 2nd
| Points | ESPN | Blogging the Bracket | Washington Post | Bracket Wag | Bleacher Report |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Points | ESPN | Blogging the Bracket | Washington Post | Bracket Wag | Bleacher Report |
| 16 | Louisville | Louisville | North Carolina | Boise State | Boise State |
| 15 | North Carolina | Seton Hall | Boise State | Colorado St. | Colorado St. |
| 14 | VCU | North Carolina | VCU | Drake | VCU |
| 13 | Boise State | Georgia Tech | UConn | St. Bonaventure | Georgia Tech |
| Last Four In | |||||
| 12 | Drake | Xavier | Saint Louis | Seton Hall | Michigan State |
| 11 | Colorado State | VCU | Colorado State | Georgia Tech | St. Bonaventure |
| 10 | Seton Hall | Colorado State | Drake | VCU | Drake |
| 9 | Georgia Tech | Drake | Georgia Tech | UConn | Wichita State |
| First Four Out | |||||
| 8 | Michigan State | Michigan State | Seton Hall | Michigan State | Seton Hall |
| 7 | Duke | Duke | Michigan State | Duke | Duke |
| 6 | Indiana | Utah State | Ole Miss | St. John's | Syracuse |
| 5 | Utah State | Saint Louis | Indiana | Syracuse | Indiana |
| Next Four Out | |||||
| 4 | Saint Louis | Stanford | Utah State | SMU | Minnesota |
| 3 | SMU | Memphis | Duke | Indiana | Utah State |
| 2 | Syracuse | Syracuse | Stanford | Memphis | Memphis |
| 1 | Memphis | SMU | Syracuse | Stanford | Saint Louis |
Here are the averages for the teams on the bubble. Remember an average of 9.0 or better means you should be in the tournament.
Bubble Averages March 2nd
| Team | Not on bubble brackets | Points | Average |
|---|---|---|---|
| Team | Not on bubble brackets | Points | Average |
| UConn | 3 Safe | 22 | 11.00 |
| Louisville | 2 Safe | 32 | 10.67 |
| North Carolina | 2 Safe | 45 | 15.00 |
| Boise State | 1 Safe | 60 | 15.00 |
| VCU | 63 | 12.60 | |
| Colorado State | 62 | 12.40 | |
| Drake | 55 | 11.00 | |
| Georgia Tech | 55 | 11.00 | |
| Seton Hall | 53 | 10.60 | |
| Michigan State | 43 | 8.60 | |
| Duke | 31 | 6.20 | |
| Saint Louis | 22 | 4.40 | |
| Utah State | 18 | 3.60 | |
| Syracuse | 16 | 3.20 | |
| Indiana | 14 | 2.80 | |
| SMU | 8 | 1.60 | |
| Memphis | 8 | 1.60 | |
| Stanford | 7 | 1.40 | |
| St. John's | 6 | 1.20 | |
| Minnesota | 4 | 0.80 |
Our resident gurus of grids each have a few choices of their own that are a bit outside the standard deviations.
- Patrick Stevens of the WaPo has Ole Miss only needing to leapfrog two teams to make the tournament, yet no one else has the Rebels anywhere on their last eight out.
- Kerry Miller of Bleacher Report has Minnesota just one line away from being one of the four reserve teams that might be used as a replacement for a team that falls out of the tournament. No one else mentions the Gophers anywhere.
- Shelby Mast puts St. John’s as a standby team as well. He is the only mention of the Johnnies anywhere.
It shows the breadth of how this field is being analyzed by people that do this every year, and trying to decipher how the committee will prioritize the criteria for establishing the best 68 will be a huge factor this season.
And for teams that still believe a hot run in a conference tournament can help, there’s at least someone out there giving you a shot to make the field without cutting down the nets for a league title.
Of course there are two games tonight (Indiana-Michigan State, Duke-Georgia Tech) that will have massive implications, with the winners probably putting themselves on the good side of the bubble, and making all we’ve written above change.
Just another college basketball day in March.