We know everyone is already looking ahead to the tournament and filling out their brackets, but here is our final look back at B101's "season".
Leading up to Selection Sunday we feel that our projection-prediction method was once again the most realistic and reliable way to project the field. Before conference tournaments started, and in most cases much before that, we already had 2 out of the 3 eventual bid
stealers (WAC, Horizon, A-10) in our bracket. We had Wright State in the bracket since February 26, and we had New Mexico State in every bracket since December 26. We were also a week ahead of other brackets in giving Kansas a 1 seed and in taking Missouri State out of the field completely. Hopefully more
bracketologists will start using our method (and not the traditional "season ending today" model) in the future, so that fans have a better idea of their team's chances as the amount of bubble spots available inevitably shrinks during championship week.
As for the final bracket, we are once again happy with our success in seeding the field compared to other
bracketologists. We were very pleased to have predicted all of the 1 and 2 seeds correct, considering it was a much harder decision this year than most. We are also pleased with our number of exact seeds and teams within one seed line. In both of those statistics, we did considerably better, or at least the same, as the other "major" bracketologists.
Our biggest regret is changing our mind on Selection Sunday and including 3 teams from the
CAA for the first time all season. We were never a huge fan of
Drexel all week and
unfortunately we ended up riding the wave of support that was being generated for the team throughout the weekend. We should have thought with our heads more and tried to get into the minds of the committee instead of using our hearts.
This year's committee once again seemed to put a lot of importance on the strength of the conference. We don't think they are sitting in a room and saying that we need to have so many teams from this conference and so many from this one, but a major reason why the committee may have included Arkansas over Syracuse is because they were not about to put 7 teams in from the 5
th rated conference and only 4 teams in from the 2
nd rated conference. The same could be said for the potential 3 teams out of the 13
th rated Colonial.
In the end, it was another exciting and successful season for B101. We'd like to thank all the fans for their comments, e-mails, and contributions to the site. The insight, questions, and analysis that you brought to the site were impressive all season long. We also want to thank our resident geographical genius Matt Reeves for his tireless work each week in compiling the bracket.
Enjoy the tournament. We'll be making periodic updates throughout, starting Wednesday with our complete brackets and Final Four picks.
Chris and Craig
Bracketology 101
It's rare at B101 that we outwardly promote or endorse the work of others (or endorse books at all for that matter), but if you're a college basketball fan looking for a fix between now and Thursday's regionals, or if you just love rooting for the little guy, Michael Litos' book "Cinderella: Inside the Rise of Mid-Major College Basketball" is a must-read.
