WBB projections for tomorrow...

Posted on: February 25, 2018 at 21:09:57 CT

in the updated ESPN bracketology.

Last Monday the selection committee last reveal was like this:

1 UConn
2 Miss State
3 Louisville
4 Notre Dame
5 Baylor
6 Oregon
7 SC
8 Texas
9 FSU
10 UCLA
11 Missouri
12 Tennessee
13 Ohio State
14 Maryland
15 Georgia
16 Stanford

The ESPN bracket last Monday tracked that very closely, biggest difference was they had Ohio State as a 5 seed instead of the highest 4 seed, and they had NC State as a 4 seed.

Tomorrow ESPN should have their top 6 be the same as the selection committee, they all won their games this week. The next 5 teams all lost a game: SC, Texas, FSU, UCLA, and Missouri. All of them were to ranked teams on the road, except Texas losing to Baylor, so it will be interesting to see how those losses are judged. My guess is that SC and Texas will be on the 2 seed line as the 7th and 8th best teams, with Texas replacing FSU on the 2 seed line. The 3 seeds will be Tennessee, UCLA, FSU, and either Mizzou or Ohio State, probably the latter. Ohio State only beat 2 bad teams, but didn't lose. I just dont see Maryland jumping us, after losing to unranked Michigan on the road and barely beating unranked Nebraska at home by 2 points. Even as bad as our loss was today. The next team in line is Georgia. Do they jump us when all they did was beat 3 unranked teams in Ole Miss, Florida, and Alabama? In a just world, no. Same with Stanford. I think TAMU lands back on the 4 seed line after whipping us today, but not sure who they replace. It would have to be Stanford or Maryland. Duke is also back in the picture with their big win over FSU.

So I think (hope) we will drop only slightly, to the last 3 seed or the first 4 seed. Not so much because we had a great week (we didn't). But because no one right behind us did much of anything either. A guess on the last two seed lines is:

3s: Tennessee, FSU, UCLA, Ohio State
4s: Missouri, TAMU, Georgia, Maryland/Stanford/Duke
Just missing: 2 out of Maryland/Stanford/Duke, NC State, Oregon State, South Florida

Pending the upsets that always happen in conference tournaments, a Missouri-Georgia quarterfinal could be shaping up as a play in game for a national seed. It really shouldn't be for us; it's hard to believe we could go from a #11 overall 3 seed in last Monday's reveal to not seeded at all just by losing to two ranked teams like TAMU and Georgia, but it wouldn't shock me either because I think the competition for the last 4-5 national seeds is going to be really, really tight.

We know who to root against in their conference tournaments, it's a pretty short list: Ohio State, Maryland, TAMU, Georgia, Duke, Stanford, and maybe NC State. I think Tennessee and SC are locks at this point no matter what happens, as are FSU and UCLA.

Edited by bluetiger_ at 21:16:23 on 02/25/18