Welcome to the first edition of SS Bracketology! With selection day coming up soon, I think it is an appropriate time to start looking at what the bracket could look like as of today. There are many bracketologists out there, and they all do things a little differently, so before I get into my first projected bracket, I want to talk a little about my methodology and history projecting the bracket.
Bracketology is more about predicting how the selection committee perceives the teams, rather than your own perception of the teams. Thus, I believe it is important to be subjective and look at the data more than your feelings about a team. Based on past years results, there are a few indicators I value when creating the seed list each week. NET rankings, quadrant records, advanced stats from websites such as Kenpom and T-Rank make up the bulk of the data I use to help create seed lists.
I’ve been creating my own “bracketology’s” for the past 3 years now just for fun and to see how I would do. 2020 was my first year attempting it, but sadly COVID interrupted the season and the NCAA tournament was never played. In 2021, I successfully selected 67 of the 68 teams in the field. I seeded 47 teams correctly, and seeded 17 more teams plus or minus one from their actual seed. This adds up to a paymon score of 359. The paymon score is how The Bracket Matrix scores bracketologists, and in 2021, the average paymon score on bracket matrix was 346.4. In 2022, I once again correctly selected 67 of the 68 teams in the field, however I only seeded 38 of them correctly, and had 27 teams seeded plus or minus one from their actual seed. This resulted in a paymon score of 342. The average paymon score on bracket matrix in 2022 was 347. In my two years of practicing bracketology, my total score adds up to 701, slightly higher than the average combined total of 693.4. With one great and one slightly below average season under my belt, I’m excited to continue to refine my process and hopefully improve my results.
I plan to continuously update the bracketology, and occasionally include write ups discussing the big movers from the most recent update. Check out the most recent update of my here!
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