We can project 2018 NCAA tournament bids by conference using quality wins

Eight weeks from today, we’ll be deep into conference tournament play, and merely 48 or so hours away from the announcement of the field for 2018’s NCAA tournament — one that should be rather wild, based on the first two months of this season, anyway.

Since we’ve reached roughly the midpoint of the march to Selection Sunday, it’s time to once again forecast how many bids each conference will receive on March 11. Last season, I did fairly well in this exercise, correctly predicting the bid totals of three conferences — the Big Ten’s seven-spot haul and the two-place totals for the American Athletic and West Coast. I predicted that the ACC, Atlantic 10, and Pac-12 would earn one more bid than their eventual totals, while my picks for the Big 12, Big East, and SEC were each one short.

This season’s post is going to be a bit more data-intensive, thanks to the guidance the Division I Men’s Basketball Committee, the Selection Committee for short, has provided over the past year. For starters, 2017’s mid-February sneak peak at the top four lines of the bracket let us all know that the Committee truly values quality wins. Then, over the summer, the Committee further clarified things by redefining that very term, placing more of an emphasis on winning away from home. So, instead of teams being grouped solely by RPI, as in the past, the Selection Committee’s team sheets now classify wins into four groups that account for location, as illustrated below.

Under the old system, the ranges in the “Neutral” column applied to all victories, home, road, and neutral. But with this updated classification, teams get more credit for defeating a wider variety of opponents in true road games — wins over the RPI’s top 135 team now qualify for Group 1 or 2 status, when only victories over the top 100 did previously.

On the flip side, teams can no longer prop their profiles up solely by defending their home floors. Only home victories against the top 30, not the top 50, will fall under Group 1 in 2018, while Group 2 has been transformed from teams ranked in the second 50 of Division I to those ranked between 31st and 75th.

Considering these changes, it’s not surprising that most of the remaining quality win opportunities left — particularly in Group 1 — will come in true road games. This is particularly true for teams from the Big Ten and Pac-12, which simply don’t have the teams ranked among the RPI top 30 that the other power conferences do.

Disclaimer: All data from WarrenNolan.com. Projected Final RPIs, Maximum Quality Win Totals and Current Quality Win Totals reflect games played as of the morning of Friday, Jan. 12. Projected Quality Win Totals accurate as of the evening of Thursday, Jan. 11.

In short, teams from the SEC, ACC, Big East, and Big 12 will have more opportunities to improve their March fortunes, both in terms of selection and seeding, than Big Ten, Pac-12, and American members. Meanwhile, the deck is stacked against the remaining 25 conferences, especially with the Atlantic 10 — a three-bid league a season ago — in a down season.

Now, we’ll look at the prospects of each likely multi-bid conference by comparing the total quality win chances each squad could claim by the end of the regular season. Since these are only opportunities and almost all of these remaining games are head-to-head contests, you can’t expect each team to equal its total. However, the higher the total of potential wins, the better chance an individual team has of earning a high total of actual quality wins.

For each league, I’ve sorted teams in this manner:

• The maximum number of “quality wins” each team can secure (Max. Total)
• The maximum number of Group 1 wins each team can secure (Max. Gp. 1)
• Projected final RPI ranking (from WarrenNolan.com)

If you scroll to the right of each table, each team’s remaining quality win opportunities and current actual quality victories are broken out by group.

At this point of the season, it looks like 23 conferences will send just one team to March Madness. This post aims to predict where the remaining 45 bids will go.

Teams in Tuesday’s projection: 7 (Duke, Virginia, North Carolina, Clemson, Miami (Fla.), Florida State, Notre Dame)
Average Total Quality Win Opportunities per Team: 13.6 (No. 4 of 7 power conferences)

Even the worst teams in the ACC, Pittsburgh and Georgia Tech, could claim 11 or more quality wins by the time ACC tournament play begins in Brooklyn. However, considering the pair’s disparate results in their respective Wednesday home games — the Yellow Jackets upset Notre Dame while Duke torched the Panthers in a game that was over by the first media timeout — that doesn’t mean their chances are remotely equivalent.

The presence of 11 ACC squads in the projected final RPI top 60, combined with the copious quality win opportunities available to them, means the conference’s current bid total of seven seems a bit low. Louisville, N.C. State, Syracuse, and Virginia Tech will all have chances to play their way in over the next two months, with the Cardinals and Wolfpack taking steps toward inclusion over the past week. And given how some of the conferences below will struggle to produce at-large contenders, a nine- or 10-bid haul is certainly possible.

Projected final bid total: 9

Teams in Tuesday’s projection: 3 (Cincinnati, Wichita State, SMU)
Average Total Quality Win Opportunities per Team: 12.2 (No. 6 of 7)

Note: I excluded South Florida (RPI 294) and East Carolina (RPI 307) from this analysis.

While the Bearcats and Shockers are in great shape in mid-January, inconsistent play by the remainder of the league means early season dreams of four (or more) bids aren’t likely to come to fruition. Additionally, the conference’s unbalanced schedule limits the remaining quality win chances available to the teams aiming to join Cincinnati and Wichita State in the field. While Houston still has five Group 1 win opportunities left, SMU and UCF have one fewer, while Temple can look forward to just three. And that’s trouble for an Owl squad that’s 8-8 but with five Group 1 and 2 victories, all away from home.

Other than claiming the automatic bid, defeating the league’s top two teams is the most surefire way for an American Athletic squad to keep itself in the at-large discussion, even at this relatively early stage.

Projected final bid total: 3

Teams in Tuesday’s projection: 6 (West Virginia, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas Tech, TCU, Texas)
Average Total Quality Win Opportunities per Team: 16.2 (No. 2 of 7)

Last season, Kansas State and Oklahoma State were able to shake off some unconvincing non-conference performances once Big 12 play began — and grabbed enough quality wins to earn places in the field. And with the league even stronger this season — five of the six teams in Tuesday’s projection ranked among the top 16 overall — the Wildcats, Cowboys, and Baylor are all primed to follow a similar playbook in 2018.

The average Big 12 team has at least two more quality win opportunities available to it than the average ACC team and a staggering five more than the average Big Ten squad. And that disparity won’t just push the conference’s bid total to seven or eight, it will also pay dividends at the top of the bracket. Kansas, West Virginia, and Oklahoma — all threats to claim a No. 1 seed when all is said and done — will each have 12 or 13 chances to enhance their credentials, and that’s even before the Big 12 tournament begins in Kansas City.

Projected final bid total: 7

Teams in Tuesday’s projection: 7 (Villanova, Xavier, Seton Hall, Butler, Creighton, Marquette, Providence)
Average Total Quality Win Opportunities per Team: 14.8 (No. 3 of 7)

Like the Big 12, the Big East’s double-round-robin schedule will provide plenty of quality win opportunities to its bid contenders. However, the relative weakness of the conference’s bottom three teams — DePaul, Georgetown, and St John’s — means most of these fall under Group 1. The difference is stark. Here on Jan. 12, each Big East team has an average of 9.5 Group 1 win opportunities left, and just under 1.5 Group 2 chances remaining!

In other words, all seven conference members in Tuesday’s projection are more than likely to remain in the picture all the way until the end. And if St. John’s can turn its season around in short order, the Red Storm could put themselves right back on the bubble — thanks to the 12 potential Group 1 wins still left on their schedule.

Projected final bid total: 7

Teams in Tuesday’s projection: 6 (Purdue, Michigan State, Michigan, Maryland, Ohio State, Minnesota)
Average Total Quality Win Opportunities per Team: 11.1 (No. 7 of 7)

After looking at a pair of conferences that play true round-robin schedules, it’s time to turn our attention to a trio of leagues with unbalanced slates. And this season, the combination of uneven schedules and typically terrible non-conference scheduling might spell doom for the Big Ten’s March hopes. Sure, Purdue, the nation’s current leader in quality wins, should earn a protected seed, but the 13 quality wins that Michigan State and Michigan could pick up if everything goes perfectly from here on out might look paltry when compared to the best of the nation’s strongest conferences.

And then when you change the focus to the bubble, the maximum quality win totals teams like Maryland, Minnesota, and Ohio State could offer will look noticeably inferior to those of their ACC, Big East, Big 12, and SEC competitors. Plus, those teams will all take the floor for their conference tournaments — ready to deliver their closing arguments to the Committee — days after the Big Ten’s festivities wrap up in New York. The projected presence of a half-dozen league members in the RPI’s bottom 200 might only make matters worse.

Projected final bid total: 4

Teams in Tuesday’s projection: 4 (Arizona State, Arizona, Washington, UCLA)
Average Total Quality Win Opportunities per Team: 11.8 (No. 6 of 7)

The Pac-12’s own unbalanced schedule features one particularly glaring flaw in 2018 — the Arizona schools do not travel to Los Angeles — and a smaller one, as the Washington schools only host the Sun Devils and Wildcats. Those gaps help explain why the Pac-12’s table looks so different from the rest. Colorado and Stanford, two teams that aren’t really in the at-large picture, own the second- and third-highest totals of maximum quality wins. That leaves majority of the league’s at-large threats with paltry totals. Arizona State’s maximum total of 14 is more in line with that of Baylor or Oklahoma State, the two lowest-ranked Big 12 teams, than any of the Sun Devils’ competitors for a protected seed. Meanwhile, UCLA’s 11 chances would rank poorly in the American Athletic.

Unlike the Big Ten, Pac-12 teams will at least be able to make a late case to the Committee over Selection Weekend. However, it might take a surprise auto bid winner for the league to claim a quartet of bids.

Projected final bid total: 4

Teams in current projection: 8 (Auburn, Kentucky, Florida, Tennessee, Texas A&M, Georgia, Arkansas, Alabama)
Average Total Quality Win Opportunities per Team: 16.5 (No. 1 of 7)

The SEC’s improved non-conference scheduling should pay dividends this season, with the league poised to capitalize on the Big Ten’s and Pac-12’s struggles to secure a bid total not seen in history. It helps that the average league member could have nearly five more quality win chances at the end of the season than those conference’s average.

While Alabama and Arkansas are scuffling and Texas A&M is dealing with injuries, LSU and Missouri are knocking on the door. And given the copious quality win opportunities available, there’s time for teams to make a late charge. South Carolina, Ole Miss, and Mississippi State could all own more quality wins at the end of the season than current contenders UCLA and Ohio State.

Projected final bid total: 9

At-large teams in current projection: 2 (Gonzaga, St. Bonaventure)
Average Total Quality Win Opportunities per Team: 5.4

With Wichita State moving to the American Athletic, the number of consistent mid-major at-large threats again shrunk over the offseason. And even though the West Coast, Mountain West and, to a lesser extent, Missouri Valley and Colonial are all improved this season, that’s not translating into a real increase in competition for bids nationally. Then when you consider that just four of the Atlantic 10’s 14 teams rank in the RPI top 150, prospects look even bleaker.

While I’ve listed 27 teams in this group, this was to illustrate how difficult of a hill many of these teams have to climb to earn at-large consideration. I had to stretch this grouping out to more than double the size of the typical power conference to find a total of quality win opportunities that compares to a multi-bid league — and that’s an American with its two worst teams knocked off the list. Still, the average mid-major bid contender would end the season with a maximum total of five quality wins — that’s a half-dozen less than the two worst power conferences on this list, the Big Ten and Pac-12.

At this point, it looks like Gonzaga, Rhode Island, and Nevada should all finish in the RPI top 30 and get in even if they fail to win their respective conference tournaments. And if any of them does fall, it’s likely a power conference team sees its bid evaporate. That’s because the two other mid-majors with a decent chance of earning an at-large bid — Saint Mary’s, whose non-conference schedule was weak, and St. Bonaventure, owner of four quality wins and bad losses to Saint Joseph’s and Niagara — have flawed profiles that could be passed over.

Projected mid-major at-large total: 1

I’ll be touching upon these quality win totals as the season unfolds. My next full bracket will arrive on Tuesday.