Monday, March 10, 2014

Top Twenty (3/10) and Predictions


1 Louisville
31.10
0.65%
2 Arizona
30.18
-0.46%
3 Iowa
29.88
-0.57%
4 Duke
29.72
-0.47%
5 Oklahoma St.
29.69
-0.13%
6 Michigan
29.58
0.61%
7 Creighton
29.44
-0.37%
8 Villanova
29.38
0.20%
9 Ohio St.
29.24
-0.03%
10 Florida
29.14
0.83%
11 Michigan St.
29.09
0.28%
12 Kansas
29.01
0.21%
13 Kentucky
28.90
-0.52%
14 Iowa St.
28.80
-0.24%
15 UCLA
28.71
-0.73%
16 Cincinnati
28.62
-0.07%
17 Wisconsin
28.60
-0.35%
18 Gonzaga
28.53
NEW
19 Arkansas
28.49
-0.21%
20 Arizona St.
28.47
-0.32%

The regular season Top Twenty ends with Louisville atop the leaderboard after strong showings against SMU and Connecticut this week.  But the biggest winner was Florida, who jumped four spots after crushing South Carolina and Kentucky.  UCLA took the biggest hit following a bad loss at Washington State.

It's interesting to compare the computer rankings to the AP ranking.  Wichita State is probably going to get a #1 seed for the tournament, so this could be the year that a #16 beats a #1.  And Oklahoma State might not get an invite despite being the in the top twenty of most computer polls.

PREDICTIONS

It's conference tournament week, so the marquee matchups won't happen till later in the week and aren't scheduled yet.  Only a couple of games currently stand out:

Notre Dame vs. Wake Forest (Notre Dame by 1)

An early-round ACC matchup between two teams that are statistically nearly identical.
Utah State vs. Colorado State (CSU by 2)
These two teams are the Notre Dame - Wake Forest equivalents in the Mountain West.
Indiana vs. Illinois (Indiana by 3.5)
These two teams are the Notre Dame - Wake Forest equivalents in the B1G.  They split their previous two meetings (although the Illini needed OT to win in Urbana) so this is the rubber match.
Maryland vs. FSU (Maryland by 3)
After surprising UVa, Maryland gets one more chance at a win on its way out of the ACC.  FSU needs to get on a roll in the ACC Tournament to have a shot at getting into the NCAA Tournament.

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