Bracketology 2019-2020


Creme has (with projected seeding):

2 Maryland
4 Minnesota
6 Indiana
6 Michigan
7 Michigan State
8 Rutgers

First four out: Ohio State, Northwestern
 

Creme has (with projected seeding):

2 Maryland
4 Minnesota
6 Indiana
6 Michigan
7 Michigan State
8 Rutgers

First four out: Ohio State, Northwestern

Note that (as usual) these are rankings within each of the four hosting locations of 16 teams each. So you can roughly multiply by four to get an estimate of Creme's overall ranking of these teams within the field of 64 ...

~8 Maryland
~16 Minnesota
~24 Indiana
~24 Michigan
~28 Michigan State
~32 Rutgers

~64 Ohio State
~64 Northwestern
 

No one would love to see the Gophers earn the right to host the first rounds of the tourney more than me (which would come with an overall 16 seed) but even this homer thinks that'd be a really big jump for this team.
 
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No one would love to see the Gophers earn the right to host the first rounds of the tourney (which would come with an overall 16 seed) but even this homer thinks that'd be a really big jump for this team.

Yeah, we’d all love to host a first-round game, but Charlie may be a little too optimistic. For one thing, his numbers are probably accurate to one bit. So ~16 might mean anywhere from #8 to #32. Next, another (also probably inaccurate) estimator, the College Sports Madness Top 44, has the Gophers at #23 (and MSU at #16), so factoring that in, one might guess the Gophers to be closer to #32 than to #8. It’s almost like he flip-flopped the Gophers and the Spartans, relative to CSM pre-season rankings.

What would it take for the Gophers to be ranked #16 by end of season? We’d almost need to win out the non-conf schedule again in spite of a tougher schedule, and so this time get “over-ranked” at about #8 at mid-season instead of last year’s #12. Possible if we beat the Irish, which may be a 50/50 chance. But then we’d need to lose only about 2-3 Big Ten games to “only” get dragged from #8 down to #16 (as opposed to last year, when we got dragged down to the WNIT). Knowing how tough it is to win away games in the B1G, it’s likely we lose more than 3 Big Ten games. So #16 at end of season would be very hard to achieve.

On the other hand, could we start out the NCAA tourney not hosting, but make it to the Sweet Sixteen? I say there’s a positive probability of that happening, if we have all key players healthy. To do that, we might need decent match-ups in the first two rounds.

Probably way too early to talk about tournament time, but what the heck, why not set our goals high. I’m sure the Gopher players do.
 
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Yeah, we’d all love to host a first-round game, but Charlie may be a little too optimistic. For one thing, his numbers are probably accurate to one bit. So ~16 might mean anywhere from #8 to #32. Next, another (also probably inaccurate) estimator, the College Sports Madness Top 44, has the Gophers at #23 (and MSU at #16), so factoring that in, one might guess the Gophers to be closer to #32 than to #8. It’s almost like he flip-flopped the Gophers and the Spartans, relative to CSM pre-season rankings.

What would it take for the Gophers to be ranked #16 by end of season? We’d almost need to win out the non-conf schedule again in spite of a tougher schedule, and so this time get “over-ranked” at about #8 at mid-season instead of last year’s #12. Possible if we beat the Irish, which may be a 50/50 chance. But then we’d need to lose only about 2-3 Big Ten games to “only” get dragged from #8 down to #16 (as opposed to last year, when we got dragged down to the WNIT). Knowing how tough it is to win away games in the B1G, it’s likely we lose more than 3 Big Ten games. So #16 at end of season would be very hard to achieve.

On the other hand, could we start out the NCAA tourney not hosting, but make it to the Sweet Sixteen? I say there’s a positive probability of that happening, if we have all key players healthy. To do that, we might need decent match-ups in the first two rounds.

Probably way too early to talk about tournament time, but what the heck, why not set our goals high. I’m sure the Gopher players do.

My math skills may not be up to snuff, so I apologize if I'm misunderstanding you, but Creme has the Gophers as a 4, meaning either the 13, 14, 15 or 16 overall seed (rather than "anywhere from 8 to 32"), with the matches listed in Minneapolis. (But, again, he is oddly high on the Gophers.) (And, as long as we're reading imaginary tea leaves, it may be worth noting that he has Notre Dame at a very-low-for-them 5 seed, below the Gophers, so I guess he's projecting a Gopher win there? That would certainly boost both an undefeated OOC and the RPI.)
 

My math skills may not be up to snuff, so I apologize if I'm misunderstanding you, but Creme has the Gophers as a 4, meaning either the 13, 14, 15 or 16 overall seed (rather than "anywhere from 8 to 32"), with the matches listed in Minneapolis. (But, again, he is oddly high on the Gophers.) (And, as long as we're reading imaginary tea leaves, it may be worth noting that he has Notre Dame at a very-low-for-them 5 seed, below the Gophers, so I guess he's projecting a Gopher win there? That would certainly boost both an undefeated OOC and the RPI.)

OK, I was being over-skeptical about the potential accuracy of Creme’s pre-season picks. He is one of the best experts, after all. So let’s (still conservatively) give him credit for 3 significant bits worth of accuracy (not the 1 bit that I glibly threw out there before). In that case, the dice would say that maybe Charlie is spot on (Gophers earn 16th overall seed); or maybe he is overly pessimistic (Gophers get overall seed #12 through #15); or maybe he is overly optimistic about our Gophs (they get overall seed #17 through #20). In 50% of those potential outcomes, the Gophers host Round 1-2 games. So, to the extent that one might believe that Creme’s pre-season estimates might be approximately accurate, one could then conclude that we have about a 50% chance of hosting a Round 1.

As noted, Notre Dame gets a 5 seed in their group, thus an estimated ~20 ranking overall, just a bit worse-off than Minnesota. It was on that basis that I estimated that we have about a 50% chance of beating the Irish on the road. If we do best them, that helps a lot toward realizing at-home first-round playoff games (but we would still have to take care of business in the Big Ten). It might well be that Charlie has us beating Notre Dame. Make it so, team.
 





The big story is that Charlie has 11 B1G teams:

3 Indiana
4 Maryland
6 Michigan
6 Minnesota
7 Michigan State
7 Rutgers
8 Purdue
9 Iowa
10 Northwestern
11 Ohio State
12 Nebraska
 

Oh, what a cluster the BIG could be. From early season results, it's looking like Maryland might be closer to the field than originally thought. Of the 11 teams Charlie has in today, I'm thinking that Iowa and Nebraska may not be there at the end of the season. Purdue is a bit suspect also, but they have enough veterans where they should be able to make it. Rutgers and Northwestern more formidable than I thought they would be. Indiana looking like they have a slight chance to challenge Maryland. Can't wait until conference play. I'm curious why the BIG has opted not to have some early conference games like they have on the men's side.
 

I'm curious why the BIG has opted not to have some early conference games like they have on the men's side.

Probably because the men play 20 conference games and the women 18. Although there was a time years ago when the women went from 16 to 18 conference games for a couple of years, the women played an early December game.
 





Creme drops Minnesota to a #9 seed in the UConn region.

The UConn part isn’t nearly as scary as past seasons. They’re probably the most undeserving #1 seed, until they can beat someone elite... like Baylor who is coming up on their schedule.
 

Gophers are the last team in on the latest 1/10/20 update.
 

ASU beating Oregon helps but unless this team goes at least 9-9 in conference and beats a team or 2 above them, I’m afraid it’s WNIT again. Hopefully the players coach Whalen brings in can be competitive in the BIG
 


Charlie Creme must be feeling a little loopy this week putting Minnesota back in his bracket.

Almost nobody from his current First Four Out and Next Four Out is or has been impressive (none of the Next Four Out seem to be of any threat to make field barring massive upsets), so Gophers being a last team in isn't unreasonable (assuming they get full credit for everything they did when Pitts was around, e.g. beat Arizona St).
 

Charlie Creme must be feeling a little loopy this week putting Minnesota back in his bracket.
bracket.

Anyone else notice that Shades was nowhere to be found on the board when the Team won yesterday. If its not negative drama or a loss then not a peep from Shades.... shocking
 

Anyone else notice that Shades was nowhere to be found on the board when the Team won yesterday. If its not negative drama or a loss then not a peep from Shades.... shocking

Don’t you have anything other than me to talk about? Are you obsessed with me? You’re supposed to talk about basketball.
 

Charlie Creme must be feeling a little loopy this week putting Minnesota back in his bracket.
bracket.
One wonders whether Charlie’s analysis extends so deep that he checks which teams’ leading scorers just departed the team last week, and if so, whether it was amicable. Certainly not worth checking in most weeks.
 

Don’t you have anything other than me to talk about? Are you obsessed with me? You’re supposed to talk about basketball.
I'm simply pointing out how much of troll you are. you sure have a lot to say anytime they lose a close game or drama hits. yet they have a pretty good win yesterday and you cant be found cause nothing negative happened. a fan of the team can be critical but not ONLY critical. you have nothing positive to say about the coaching staff, team, players etc. why watch or follow them?
 

It's easier for many people, including me, to have more to say when favorite team is losing. Vikings fans have more to say when they lose, I'm sure people in Kansas City would have more to say if the Chiefs lost yesterday. Lakers fans have more to say when they go on slumps instead of winning, etc.
 

I'm simply pointing out how much of troll you are. you sure have a lot to say anytime they lose a close game or drama hits. yet they have a pretty good win yesterday and you cant be found cause nothing negative happened. a fan of the team can be critical but not ONLY critical. you have nothing positive to say about the coaching staff, team, players etc. why watch or follow them?

You had nothing to say about the game, so who are you to talk? Just worry about about the team and yourself and stop concerning yourself with me.
 

One wonders whether Charlie’s analysis extends so deep that he checks which teams’ leading scorers just departed the team last week, and if so, whether it was amicable. Certainly not worth checking in most weeks.

It’s a pretty big story to miss, so if he did, he’s not doing a very good job.
 

By the way, all, @Shades is a regular contributor, not a troll. He regularly covers bracketology at about this time every week. A while ago we jointly covered Carlie Wagner playing in Spain. And as noted, lots of people’s frequency of posting goes up and down with losing vs winning, or the weather, or with access to the Internet, or whatever.
 


Crazy Charlie finally moved the Gophers out of his bracket.
As of 1/29/2020, about half-way through the Big-Ten season, Charlie Creme’s implied 1-64 based ranking from his four-section bracketology is listed along-side Big-Ten teams in order of Games Back (with overall record acting as tie breaker).

Team (ESPN Rank) Conf (GB) Creme Rank
Iowa (#18) 8-1 (-) #9-12
Northwestern (#23) 7-2 (1) #13-16
Maryland (#23) 7-2 (1) #13-16
Indiana (#20) 6-3 (2) #17-20
Rutgers 5-3 (2.5) #25-28
Nebraska 5-4 (3) #37-40
Purdue 5-4 (3) #33-36
Michigan 4-4 (3.5) #37-40
Ohio State 4-4 (3.5) #41-44
Michigan State 4-5 (4) out
Minnesota 2-7 (6) out
Wisconsin 2-7 (6) out
Illinois 1-7 (6.5) out
Penn State 1-8 (7) out

Note that among the four ranked teams, Charlie’s implied rank is a little bit better than the ESPN rank. I think this reflects how good Charlie believes the Big Ten to be this year.

Also note that Charlie’s relative ranking of Big-Ten teams has settled down to be almost (but not quite) in the same order as Big-Ten Games Back. Minnesota is 6 games back.

Although Minnesota dropped out of the bracketology, there are still 9 Big-Ten teams left that are currently earmarked as tentatively headed for the Big Dance - the most of any league. The SEC has 7; the ACC and PAC-12 have 6; the Big-12 has 4; etc.
 
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Today’s update ahead of tonight’s selection committee Top 16 reveal.

No. 1 seeds: South Carolina, Baylor, Louisville, Oregon
No. 2 seeds: UConn, Stanford, NC State, Oregon State

I think Creme finally realized the Gophers had some bad losses, because now after two good wins, he’s thinking nothing of them.
 




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