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KenPom Bracketology: March 4th

If only Ken Pomeroy's rankings were the ones that matter.

By Joel D

If you're like most college basketball fans at this time of year, you're probably checking your favorite bracketology site on a daily basis to see where your team is sitting. Everybody knows this things change with every publication and no bracket posted today is going to line up with what comes out on Selection Sunday. Fans just want to know where their team stacks up: locks are interested in seeding, bubble teams want reassured that they're in. Here's what the KenPom numbers have to offer on those fronts right now:

First the s-curve:

The KenPom s-curve 2/25
1 KENTUCKY VIRGINIA ARIZONA VILLANOVA
2 Duke Utah GONZAGA WISCONSIN
3 BAYLOR WICHITA ST. Oklahoma Kansas
4 Ohio St. Iowa St. Northern Iowa North Carolina
5 Louisville Notre Dame Georgetown Michigan St.
6 West Virginia SMU Iowa Texas
7 Butler BYU Xavier LSU
8 Maryland VCU Arkansas SAN DIEGO ST.
9 Davidson Oklahoma St. Mississippi Georgia
10 Dayton Stanford Boise St. St. John's
11 North Carolina St. Texas A&M Providence Cincinnati
12 Oregon STEPHEN F. AUSTIN Vanderbilt Florida
12 BUFFALO OLD DOMINION
13 GREEN BAY HARVARD MURRAY ST. GEORGIA ST.
14 NORTH CAROLINA CENTRAL WOFFORD NEW MEXICO ST. UC DAVIS
15 IONA VERMONT SOUTH DAKOTA ST. NORTHEASTERN
16 ST. FRANCIS NY EASTERN WASHINGTON HIGH POINT NORTH FLORIDA
16 COLGATE TEXAS SOUTHERN
First 4 out TCU UCLA Purdue Minnesota
Next 4 out Saint Mary's Connecticut Richmond Illinois

And the bracket:

KenPom 3-4

That potential second-rounder with Gonzaga is about as good of a draw as a 7 seed could hope for if things hold (which they won't). The Xavier-Boise St. opener is illustrative of how much of the tournament is about matchups though. Boise State is certainly no great shakes as a team, but their big men are both excellent three-point shooters and they gang rebound at the defensive end. Xavier is the better team on paper, but that's just the kind of team that traditionally kills the Muskies under Coach Mack.

UC has snuck back into the top 50 both here and in the RPI, making Xavier 5-6 against top 50 teams this season. As the season draws to a close, it seems there are more obvious divergences between this bracketology and most other ones, largely due to the nature of the KenPom ratings. Teams like Florida and Vandy who have had close losses against good schedules will get favorable marks here, but winning and losing matter in the real world, and that harsh truth has some talented teams who haven't quite figured it out on the outside looking in.

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