clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

KenPom Bracketology: Xavier grabs a nine seed

The Muskies are one of six Big East teams in the tournament and would face a second round matchup with Wisconsin.

By Joel D and Brad D

If there are two things that college basketball fans love, they're KenPom numbers and bracketology. The first give an objective measure of where the team sits at the present moment, and the second opens up the path to the end goal, i.e., playing meaningful games late into March. It seems like an obvious move, then to combine the two.

First, some procedural stuff that you're probably assuming. The team with the top KenPom rating in each conference gets the automatic bid. The at-large bids and first/next four out are then filled in with the remaining teams, again in descending order of KenPom rating. From there, everyone gets dumped into the s-curve and then the bracket. I did a little bit of shuffling to keep conference opponents from facing off in the first two rounds; other than that, it's pretty straightforward. If I missed something, let me know in the comments.

Anyway, here's the s-curve:

The KenPom S-curve 11/26
1 Kentucky Duke Louisville Wisconsin
2 Wichita St. Villanova Arizona Virginia
3 Texas Kansas Gonzaga Florida
4 North Carolina San Diego St. Ohio St. Michigan St.
5 Michigan UCLA Miami FL Syracuse
6 Connecticut Oklahoma St. Maryland Baylor
7 VCU Georgetown Oklahoma Iowa St.
8 Iowa Stanford Harvard Arkansas
9 West Virginia Providence Memphis Xavier
10 Utah Minnesota Purdue Illinois
11 Kansas St. Nebraska Creighton St. John's
12 Richmond Texas A&M Oregon Notre Dame
12 Louisiana Tech Iona
13 Northeastern Green Bay Georgia St. New Mexico St.
14 Florida Gulf Coast Murray St. UC Santa Barbara Wofford
15 Toledo Denver Vermont Stephen F. Austin
16 NC Central Coastal Carolina Lafayette Eastern Washington
16 St. Francis NY Texas Southern
First 4 out BYU California Indiana Tulsa
Next 4 out Dayton Northern Iowa SMU Butler

And here's how it looks in bracket form

KP 11/26

Some notes and thoughts:

-KenPom really likes the Big 10 right now, giving them ten teams in the tournament plus Indiana on the bubble.

-The Big East has six teams in and Butler lingering in the next four out.

-The American has only UConn and Memphis in and Tulsa (!) on the bubble; heck of a football conference though.

-Xavier had been in the play-in game before opening up a can on Murray State the other night.

-Three of the top five seeds are from the ACC.

I feel like a nine is just about right for Xavier right now, but they've already been shooting up the KenPom rankings and other ratings systems both objective and otherwise. The Big East is looking up at only the Big 10, Big 12, and ACC in terms of teams in the tournament right now; I can see anywhere between 3 and 6 teams from the league ending up in the real thing when March rolls around. What do you think?

More From Banners On The Parkway