March 5, 2015

-Notre Dame won the 3-seed showdown last night, bumping Louisville all the way to a #5.
-Providence ended Seton Hall's at-large hopes and solidified their own resume.
-No major upsets thus far in conference tournament play. In fact, only 2 of 13 tournament games yesterday ended in an upset: Longwood over Presbyterian and Saint Francis (PA) over Mount St. Mary's.
-The MVC tournament gets underway tonight, with the 7-10 seeds in action.
-Play also begins in the MAAC tourney, where the Iona Gaels will be favored.

-Finally, tonight's game against the Badgers may be the Gophers' last chance to add to their resume before Selection Sunday. It would be an unlikely win, but would be enough to put the Gophers back onto the bubble. They could still use some help from Michigan State sneaking up into the top-25, Illinois sliding back into the top-50, and Northwestern climbing into the top-100.
As for plan B, the Gophers are safely in the NIT field as of today, but losses to Penn State and/or a lower opening round Big10 conference opponent could change that. I'll try to get an NIT update posted later today.


Disclaimer about today's bracket update: due to a minor anomaly that's been bugging me for awhile now, I made a slight tweak to my regression model to better support seeding of teams near the bubble. If you notice any unexpected changes from yestesrday's bracket, that's why. I'll do some additional analysis after posting and may make some further tweaks tomorrow.

1's: Kentucky, Virginia, Villanova, Duke
2's: Kansas, Wisconsin, Arizona, Gonzaga
3's: Maryland, Iowa State, Baylor, Notre Dame
4's: Wichita State, Oklahoma, Utah, North Carolina
5's: Louisville, Northern Iowa, West Virginia, Arkansas
6's: Butler, Georgetown, SMU, VCU
7's: Colorado State, Providence, Iowa, San Diego State
8's: Texas, Dayton, Saint John's, Ohio State
9's: Oklahoma State, Oregon, North Carolina State, Cincinnati
10's: Tulsa, Indiana, Michigan State, Boise State
11's: Georgia, Temple, Illinois, Xavier, Ole Miss
12's: LSU, Texas A&M, Old Dominion, Stephen F. Austin, Wofford
13's: Murray State, Harvard, Buffalo, Green Bay
14's: Iona, UC Davis, Georgia State, High Point
15's: South Dakota State, Eastern Washington, Northeastern, North Carolina Central
16's: Stony Brook, New Mexico State, Florida Gulf Coast, Bucknell, Texas Southern, Saint Francis (NY)

FFO: Davidson, Syracuse, Connecticut, Stanford
NFO: UCLA, Purdue, Pittsburgh, Richmond
...and just for fun...
NNFO: Miami (FL), BYU, Kansas State, Central Michigan
NNNFO: Minnesota, Rhode Island, Saint Mary's College, Seton Hall