Final Big East Tournament Bracket Update

by Mike Rutherford on Mar 1, 2007 5:22 PM EST in News Comment 2 comments

Just one regular season game left for every team in the league, so this will be the last bracket update before the official one comes out.

The bracket is actually exactly the same as the one posted last weekend, but there are several possibilities for change depending on what happens this weekend.

Wed., Mar. 7	Thurs., Mar 8	Fri., Mar 9	Sat.,Mar 10
Noon 8) Depaul 9) Villanova	Noon 1) Georgetown	Semifinals, 7pm	Finals, 8pm
2 pm 5) Syracuse 12) St. John's	2 pm 4) Notre Dame	Semifinals, 7pm
7 pm 7) West Virginia 10) Providence	7 pm 2) Pittsburgh	Semifinals, 9pm
9 pm 6) Marquette 11) Connecticut	9 pm 3) Louisville	Semifinals, 9pm
Out: Seton Hall, South Florida, Rutgers, Cincinnati

Notes:

--Louisville can earn the second seed with a win over Seton Hall on Sunday combined with a Pittsburgh loss to Marquette on Saturday. The Cardinals will drop to the fourth seed if they lose to the Pirates and Notre Dame beats Rutgers.

--Notre Dame is the only team currently with a bye that hasn't secured a spot in the top four. If the Irish fall to Rutgers and Syracuse beats Villanova, then the Orange would take the fourth bye.

If Notre Dame and Syracuse both lost and Marquette won, the Irish would still earn the bye by virtue of their wins over both the Orange and the Golden Eagles. SU would get the fifth seed because of their win over Marquette. Basically, Marquette can't earn a seed higher than six.

--West Virginia, Depaul, Villanova and Providence all have equal 8-7 records, and their seeds are in the order they are because of the Big East's "mini-conference" tie-breaker rule.

Three of the four teams have very winnable games with West Virginia playing Cincinnati, Depaul taking on South Florida and Providence getting St. John's. This makes Villanova's game against Syracuse that much more important because a loss would likely mean a slip to the tenth seed and a first-round matchup with West Virginia which would probably serve as an NCAA Tournament elimination game, much like the Cincinnati/Syracuse game we saw a year ago.

--Uconn owns the tiebreaker for the 11 seed with St. John's, and will only slip if the Johnnies beat Providence and they fall to Georgetown. The 11 seed will almost certainly get Marquette while the 12 seed will just as certainly get Syracuse.

--Complete list of games this weekend:

South Florida at Depaul (Saturday)
Uconn at Georgetown (Saturday)
Pitt at Marquette (Saturday)
Notre Dame at Rutgers (Saturday)
Syracuse at Villanova (Saturday)
Cincinnati at West Virginia (Saturday)
Seton Hall at Louisville (Sunday)
Providence at St. John's (Sunday)

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Tourney Scenario Breakdown

Am I alone in loving the playoff scenario that comes with the last week or two of the NFL season? Looks like we have a similarly complicated mess to try to figure out the Big East.

Don't have 3 master's degrees or the time to figure all of this out. If you are a UofL fan trying to figure out who to cheer for on Saturday, read on:

Of the remaining games, only 5 really matter to UofL's seeding and 1st round opponent:

Pitt at Marquette (Saturday)
Syracuse at Villanova (Saturday)
Cincinnati at West Virginia (Saturday)
Seton Hall at Louisville (Sunday)
Providence at St. John's (Sunday)

Assuming that WV, UofL, and Prov are locks against lesser opponents, 4 likely scenarios remain:

Scenario #1 - Villanova over Syracuse, Pitt over Marquette:

This leads to a 5-way tie for 6th at 9-7 records with DePaul, Marquette, Providence, WV, and Villinova.

The tie is broken by treating the 5 teams as a mini conference (best winning % if uneven number of games). Teams would have the following records:

#6 Dep (2-1)
#7 Marq (3-2)
#8 Prov (2-2) - owns head to head tiebreaker over WV
#9 WV(2-2)
#10 Vill (1-3)

So, the 1st round of the tourney would look like this for UofL:

#3 UofL vs winner of #6 DePaul/#11 UConn

Scenario #2 - Syracuse over Villanova, Pitt over Marquette:

Villanova drops out of the 9-7 tie. This leaves the following mini-conference:

#6 Prov (2-1)
#7 Dep (1-1) - DePaul owns the tie-breaker over Marquette
#8 Marq (2-2)
#9 WV (1-2)

Tourney:

#3 UofL vs winner of #6 Providence/#11 UConn

Scenario #3 - Villanova over Syracuse, Marquette over Pitt:

UofL gets the #2 seed by head-to-head win over Pitt

Mini-conference:
#7 WV (2-1)
#8 Prov (1-1)
#9 Dep (1-1)
#10 Vill (1-2)

Providence and DePaul did not play in the regular season, so it goes to section I-2-b of the tie-breaking code, where you take record against the top teams in the conference. Only dominant records prevail, so a 1-0 record does not win against 0-0, a 1-1 does not beat an 0-1, etc.

See this link for the Big East tie-breaker formula:
http://www.cstv.com/auto_pdf/p_hotos/s_chools/bige/sports/m-baskbl/auto_pdf/tiebreaker07

It goes all the way down to WV at #7. Provdence gets the #8 because they have a 1-0 record against WV while DePaul was 0-1. They only thing that really changes is their uniform color, because they are playing each other 1st round anyway.

Tourney:

#2 UofL vs winner of #7 West Virginia/#10 Villanova

Scenario #4 - Syracuse over Villanova, Marquette over Pitt:

UofL gets the #2 seed by head-to-head win over Pitt, Villanova drops out of the 9-7 tie. This leaves the following mini-conference:

#7 Prov (1-0)
#8 WV (1-1)
#9 Dep (0-1)

Tourney:

#2 UofL vs winner of #7 Providence/#10 Villanova

Personally, I like UofL's chances in scenario #1 because I think DePaul and UConn are the weakest pair. So, it is actually better if UofL gets the 3 seed. Thoughts????

Phauz
Nerd who likes to waste time at work

by Phauz on Mar 2, 2007 12:20 PM EST reply actions 0 recs