🏀 2025-2026 Bracketology

So there are no restrictions for us and Duke … only one would be if UNC plays them in the Acc tournament

No, If we get a top four seed we cannot be in the same region as them. As someone said this can theoretically get relaxed if ACC get 9 teams in, but they’d probably avoid it anyways.

Also if we play them in the ACC Title game then we could not play them again in the sweet 16.

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This is the least insightful take here, but looking at bracketmatrix, it seems kind of shocking that there may be five BIG teams seeded between the top and second place ACC teams (us and Duke). I wonder if that holds. Obviously that isn’t how the committee looks at it, but it does feel a little extreme.

I read the rule as saying conference opponents who played twice already couldn’t play before the S16, but could play in the S16.

All of this is plenty of evidence that there are too many damn rules to these brackets - I’m sure there are a lot of smart people here and we can’t even say for a definitive fact with confidence if we can or cannot be a 4 seed or higher in the same region as Duke.

Oh my bad you’re right

We definitely cannot be a 4 seed or higher in the same region as Duke… unless VT or Cal make the tournament (because reasons). But practically they’d be unlikely to put us together even in that case. It would still be a bracketing principle to keep us apart but could be relaxed for balance or preventing a team from needing to move seed lines

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“I want to believe.”

https://x.com/BetMGM/status/2030004522890797170?s=20

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Yep you’re right here, I just think they have a ton of different rules in general. Especially since the process is true seed list 1st ranking 1-68 and then going through region balance and then adjusting seedings 1 or 2 spots if needed to fit the rules and principles, then throw in the individual schools with rules like for example BYU can’t play on Sundays so they have to be adjusted down if it comes to it. Like I wouldn’t be surprised if Saturday is just a madhouse of brackets being burned and shredded left and right until you get the few contingency brackets ready for Sunday’s scenarios.

The rules are probably all in place for good reasons and someone on the committee has spent plenty of time reading and studying them but they definitely are complex when all added together.

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This is up there with the dreaded triangle as my two least favorite “predictors” of tournament success.

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I wonder how many bets on UVA, Michigan State, Tennessee, and Gonzaga BetMGM generated with this tweet by choosing that stat. Those are the 4 teams that fall under the ‘14 UConn outlier. 27/28 champions fall in Top 25 adjusted offense and defense, with the 1 being Shabazz Napier’s crew.

Also if you hate the dreaded triangle, another wild one that seems insane is the Week 6 AP Poll Top 12 has had the champion in it every year since 1989 except for 2003 Syracuse.

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These days you could have the committee put together the 68 team S curve list and feed that and the bracketing principles into an LLM AI bot and probably get 10 potential brackets in a few minutes.

Why is Maryland on that graphic? It doesn’t make sense.

Also our offense is top 70 if you judge based on last 5 weeks. Trends matter.

They won it in 2002

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Ha I didn’t even read the graphic like that. I didn’t read it as two different headers - just looked like a jumbled mix of teams.

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“You’re right, I included Gonzaga twice, and there is no university named Kendiana State. Let’s try that again.”

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I assume a win today locks in a 4 seed. Win 2 or more in the ACCT maybe we sneak onto the 3 line.

That’s where my head is.

I just don’t believe the conference tourneys matter all that much both for mathematical (one or two games wont sway metrics enough for movement) and practical (the committee doesn’t want to be building brackets over the weekend) reasons.

Chairs in the past have acknowledged that they’ve “locked” the bracket on Thursday or Friday of conference tournament week and are only then focused on contingencies from bubble busters winning their conference tournaments.

Now the media wants people to believe every game matters next week, because ratings….

Edit: So I expect we are where we are on a seed line following this weekend, which is likely a 4.

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I think both are somewhat correct, but I think that the math one is more impactful. There’s a human tendency to want to be done, and leave it all alone, but it could also be that the conference tourneys just were not moving the needle much. Maybe I’m just paying attention more this year, but things seem pretty jumbled in that 3-5 range. So it’s not so much that conference tourneys will matter this year, whereas usually they don’t, but that a marginal Q1 game (especially a blowout, in either direction) or two, could move the various needles enough to matter.

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