Big changes are coming to college basketball this season, none bigger than the demise of the Pac-12. While it still exists on paper, with Oregon State and Washington State as its only members, it is not competing this season as it seeks to rebuild over the next two years. The Beavers and Cougars will play in the West Coast Conference for now, while the other ten former members have dispersed to the ACC, Big 12 and Big Ten.
That is 12 of the 20 conference membership changes going into this season. One other change involving a power conference is that SMU finally obtained what it has been working toward for years – admission to a power conference. The Mustangs will be a member of the ACC.
There are also two new schools in Division I. Mercyhurst and West Georgia have moved up from Division II this season. They will count in the NET, but are not eligible for the NCAA Tournament until 2029.
Four teams are eligible for this year’s tournament for the first time. Bellarmine, which won the ASUN Tournament in 2022 but was not yet eligible for the NCAA Tournament, no longer has to worry about that. The Knights are joined by Tarleton State, UC San Diego and Utah Tech and first-time eligible programs.
Check out Palm’s bracket and full field of 68 at the Bracketology hub.
One more at-large bid to be awarded
From a bracket perspective, the loss of the Pac-12 means that there are only 31 automatic bids and 37 at-large spots available.
In this bracket, all but one of those 37 at-large bids is targeted for one of the teams in the bloated major conferences. That belongs to Saint Mary’s,a regular in the field, but in the First Four here. Some schools are rebuilding entirely through the transfer portal. Louisville is a good example of that. The entire Cardinals roster consists of players that have transferred in – 11 of them in this off-season. On the other end, Purdue has taken just two transfers total in the last three seasons, so not everyone is raiding the portal to find ways to win.
Part of the problem is that the non-majors often lose their best players to the bigger schools in the transfer portal. NIL has made it easier for the power schools to attract those players. Louisville has three from the College of Charleston alone.
It’s likely that a few more non-majors will work their way into the field in the end. Maybe I’ll feel differently about it when I do the next preseason bracket in November.
More metrics
There was another change announced on Thursday. The NCAA Men’s Basketball Committee announced two new rankings to their team sheets. Bart Torvik’s well-respected rankings will replace Jeff Sagarin’s in the group of margin of victory-based rankings. Sagarin retired his rankings just prior to last season. Also notable is that Torvik’s formula has a built-in recency bias, which is something the selection committee specifically does not consider in its process.
Also, Wins Against Bubble has been added. That is actually a mix of results oriented and MOV-based. The WAB formula itself is results oriented, but the definition of the bubble will be based on the NET, which is MOV-based. The NCAA will calculate this itself and has decided that the 40th ranked team in the current day’s NET will be deemed the average bubble team. WAB is the number of wins a team has subtracted by the number of wins the 40th ranked team would be expected to have against the same schedule.
And as always, keep in mind that metrics do not make decisions for the committee. It’s just another piece of information in a subjective process.
Bracketology top seeds
On to the actual bracket. The top four seeds are familiar names.
1. Alabama
Nate Oats was going to have a pretty good team whether guard Mark Sears decided to stay in the NBA Draft or not. However, Sears did decide to come back for another run at a title at Alabama and brings his 21.5 ppg and 4.0 apg with him. Latrell Wrightsell and Grant Nelson return as well. They are joined by a pair of highly regarded freshmen and four transfers, led by former Rutgers star Cliff Omayuri and Aden Holloway from Auburn.
If the Crimson Tide live up to this prediction, it will be the second time in three years that they are the tournament’s top seed.
2. Kansas
The Jayhawks are going to be loaded again. They are every year, but you wouldn’t know it from last season, where they struggled with depth and injuries, including spending a lot of time trying to find a reliable fifth starter. They eventually settled on Johnny Furphy, who left for the NBA. Hunter Dickinson, KJ Adams and Dajuan Harris are back though and joined by some pretty good transfers, including AJ Storr from Wisconsin. Kansas also signed Indiana Mr. Basketball Flory Bidunga, who may be one-and-done.
3. Houston
Even though National Defensive Player of the Year Jamal Shead is off to the pros, the Cougars return eight of their top ten scorers from last season. Houston’s calling card is always defense and you can certainly expect them to do that at an elite level once again. The Big 12 is loaded, but the Cougars figure to compete for the title again this season, and even coming up a little short of that would still merit a top seed.
4. UConn
Danny Hurley has a new deal and a new team, but the goal remains the same – win the national championship. The Huskies have won the last two and they have a lot to replace from last season’s champs. Four starters are off to the NBA, but the pipeline keeps the roster strong. Liam McNeely is a five star forward that figures to see a lot of minutes. Aidan Mahaney transferred in from Saint Mary’s where he was the motor that made the Gaels run. There may be some fits and starts at first, but you can bet that at the end, the Huskies will be right there ready to make a run at the three-peat.
As always with preseason brackets, I am a little loose with some of the bracketing rules. For example, there is no good way for me to validate avoiding regular-season matchups too early in the bracket before we see everyone’s schedules. In fact, with four massive conferences likely sending several teams to the tournament each season, those rules may need to be loosened.
Enjoy football season! See you back here for hoops when the time comes.
