The Athletic's newest bracket bumped us up to the second #7 seed and dropped Drake into the play-in game on the 12 line. First round match up with North Carolina, second round would be Iowa.

Teams in front of us on the 5, 6, and 7 in ascending order include:

1. BYU (7 seed)
2. Tennessee, Clemson, Colorado, Oklahoma (6 seeds)
3. Creighton, Florida State, USC, Texas Tech (5 seeds)

Unfortunately I think a 7 may be our ceiling. Would take some bad conference tournament exits from BYU and the 6 seeds to crawl up another line.

A 7 seed is a tad low but not unreasonable. I hope we can sneak up to 6. Anything but the dreaded 8/9.

I have no idea how we could be #20 in the country, with a NET ranking of 10... and only be an 8 or a 9 seed. Ultimately, I predict they’ll put us in the 7 spot...

I think our seed will be more related to our rankings this year than ever before because they are using the true S curve this year and won’t be adjusting for geography. https://www.ncaa.com/news/basketball-me ... -explained

I have a sneaking suspicion that a few things might happen if Illinois gets a one seed.

(a) they put us in the same bracket, but as a 6 or 7 seed to potentially set up an Elite 8 matchup with the Illini if we both make runs;

(b) if Missouri also gets in, they make us 8/9 seeds, almost guaranteeing a matchup with Illinois and either us or Missouri in the second round.

It’s strictly a guess. Even though geography isn’t supposed to be considered, those potential matchups would create huge buzz in Chicago and the Midwest. Especially given that these games will be played in Indiana.

Loyola now ranked 18 in both polls. I can't see how the bid is higher than a 7.

I agree, it probably will be a 7th seed; which is still in the top 28 teams

I'd like to get a handle on what kind of arguments there could be to put us below a 7. Bracket Matrix has us as a 9, ESPN has us as an 8. First, let's take a look at the facts/numbers:

22-4, Conference Tournament Champions
NET: 10
KenPom: 9
BPI: 20
AP: 18
Q1: 2-2, Q2: 4-2, Q3/4: 16-0
Extras: Won 6 in a row, 9-1 in last 10 games, Won 17 of last 18 games, 8-3 road record.

A lot of times, there's a "blind numbers" test given. The numbers above would be our data. Compare it to others to judge where we should fit. For instance, here's another team (don't cheat by looking it up):

17-7, 4th Place in Conference (hasn't played tournament yet)
NET: 24
KenPom: 26
BPI: 22
AP: 13
Q1: 6-6, Q2: 3-1, Q3/4: 8-0
Extras: Won 3 in a row, 6-4 in last 10 games, 6-2 road record.

Between these two teams, who should get a higher seeding? Many people would look at more Q1 games won by the 2nd team, but they also lost half their games to Q1 competition. Neither team had a "bad loss" in the Q3/Q4 category.

You'd figure Team 1 would be seeded slightly higher, wouldn't you? If you knew Team 2 was Texas, does that make a difference where you seed them?

So here's my argument for Loyola that I've thought about a lot. If you decide to seed Loyola 2 or 3 seedings BELOW Texas, then numbers and metrics really mean nothing. You're really saying that raw number of Q1 wins (not percentage of Q1 wins) is more important. There ARE going to be teams ranked high who have losing records against Q1/Q2 teams, but they had one impressive win on the road over a top Blue Blood. So we're back to where we started before the numbers and quadrants and the dog and pony show of painfully deliberative selection committees and all the trappings of a serious process.

There are a lot of teams who have many "bad" losses: Creighton is 7-3 against Q3/4 teams, Colorado is 10-3. Texas Tech has NINE Q1 losses against four Q1 wins-- combined, they're 5-9 against Q1/Q2 teams, and yet Texas Tech is a consensus 5 seed in bracket projections, despite their 35% winning percentage against "very good" teams. San Diego State has ZERO Q1 wins, and they're from a conference that KenPom ranks BELOW the MVC, but they're sitting on an 8th seed in Bracket Matrix while we're at 9. There is no broad evaluation number (erm, except Strength of Schedule, but the quadrants and efficiency numbers are supposed to measure that) where Texas Tech, San Diego State, USC, Florida or Oklahoma, comes out ahead of Loyola-- NET, BPI, AP, KenPom, percentage of Q1 or Q1+Q2 wins, etc.-- but they're almost certainly going to be seeded several levels above Loyola, maybe as many as four seeding lines.

OK... that's my opinion. We need to advocate, with apples to apples data, to refute the "Team X may only be 5 games over .500 overall and 2 games under .500 in their Big Conference, but they beat Blue Blood State in mid January!" arguments. Because we really do compare favorably to top half teams when you measure PERCENTAGE of quality wins, not just volume of high quality wins.

I agree, JCT. We’ve been saying it all year, and it’s probably going to happen: when the metrics, that they keep changing to favor big conference schools, don’t benefit the big conference schools, they’ll ignore them. “Eye test”. Note Jerry Palm, Mr. 12 seed Loyola, saying the quiet part out loud on Twitter yesterday:



Repeating it, louder, for the people in the back:

“not all Q1 and Q2 wins are the same”

There’s no actual “fair” system, and never has been. When whatever metrics they claim to use no longer benefit the schools they want it to, those metrics are ignored and then changed the next year. It’s been the case for well over a decade. It’s downright collusion to funnel the most money and attention to the biggest conferences.

All of the math and analysis is great, but if you look at the brackets - we want to avoid playing one of the top 8 teams in the country the first weekend, which means I would like to be avoid being a 7-10 seed. 5-6 are great, but I would be happy with an 11, 12 or 13. 7,8,9 and 10 teams have some loving parting gifts.