Friend of Phog Blog Ken Pomeroy breaks down the Bracket today, using his efficiency numbers, and I think Jayhawks will be pleased:
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Once again, I repeat:

You could go on gut instinct, and lose, or spend hours and hours poring over endless statistics.

Or if you’re smart, you could spend a few bucks to have access to the same proprietary tools that Vegas uses to pick games. I know I’ll be using the BracketBrains tool this year, and I recommend you do the same. Click on the banner below to check it out, but I’m pretty sure you’ll be as impressed as I am, and if you end up signing up, a little bit of dough will go to keeping the Phog Blog’s server’s running.

Minneapolis Bracket

1 ‘Nova
2 Ohio State
3 Florida - a UF/OSU game could be fun
4 Boston College - a little underseeded.
5 Nevada
6 Oklahoma
7 Georgetown
8 Arizona
9 Wisconsin
10 Northern Iowa (4th MVC team)
11 UW-Milwaukee
12 Montana
13 Pacific
14 South Alabama
15 Davidson - This is a tough 15 seed.
16

5:29

Washington Bracket

1 UConn
2 Tennessee - Worst seeding error yet.
3 UNC - About where I thought.
4 Illinois - about right.
5 Washington - They’re pretty hot, or maybe they play in the Pac 10
6 Michigan State - a tough 6 seed.
7 Wichita State - Congrats Turg.
8 Kentucky
9 UAB - Another matchup here? Iwonder if UAB can repeat?
10 Seton Hall - they made it
11 George Mason - could be a good upset pickup
12 Utah State
13 Air Force
14 Murray State
15 Winthrop
16 Albany

5:18

Oakland

1 Memphis
2 UCLA
3 Gonzaga
4 Kansas (Yah. We got a 4 seed, but Pitt will be tough)
5 Pittsburgh (lower than I would have thought)
6 Indiana (What in the heck?)
7 Marquette
8 Arkansas
9 Bucknell
10 Alabama
11 San Diego State
12 Kent sTate
13 Bradley (This is a pretty tough first round matchup, at least according to the RPI
14 Xavier
15 Belmont
16 Oral Roberts

Thoughts: Good to know we got a 4, but bad to know it’s against Pittsburgh. Seth Davis is an idiot. I wish it weren’t true, but the guy spouts nonsense half the time, and the rest is lies.

5:10

Atlanta Bracket

1 Duke
2 Texas
3 Iowa (I guess they watch the championship)
4 LSU
5 Syracuse (What the heck?)
6 West Virginia
7 California (higher than I would have thought
8 George Washington (wow, the 6th ranked tem gets an 8 seed)
9 UNC-Wilmington
10 NC State (this is low)
11 So. Illinois
12 Texas A&M (Syracuse goes down)
13 Iona
14 Northwestern State
15 Penn
16 Southern

Thoughts

GW got punked here. I thought they’d be a 5-6. Syracuse is overseeded. The 7-10 will be a good one.

5:03:

1 Seeds:

Memphis, Duke, UConn, Villanova - No surprises there. I don’t think Duke will make the Final Four. They just depend on JJ too heavily. So all this talk of number 1 overall seed is moot.

Chalmersfan’s comment earlier got me thinking about KU’s seed. I’ve heard no definitive answer regarding whether or not KU can end up in Dallas (or Dayton), because I get wrapped up in the legal mumbo jumbo of the NCAA’s guidelines.

But it occurred to me that there are a number of teams in competition with KU for seeds, and I thought I’d look into them. Feel free to add/subtract or modify in the comments. Or if you’re clever, guess my password (I don’t even know it anymore) and change my words.

Without further ado (the more stars, the better the chance, see):

UCLA** - probably better seed than KU

Pitt*** - could drop to below KU if they lose tonight to WVU badly today.

UF**** - after losing 3/4, teetering on the edge. They played well against UK last week though.

Tenn* - Could be a 2-4 seed, I think, depending on the outcome of the SEC tournament.

Boston College** - Lunardi has them as a 5. They don’t deserve their ranking.

GW*** - they could plummet to a 5 or 6 after flaming out today v. Temple.

WVU**** - my gut tells me they’ll get a 4 is a foolish sack of tissue, but they’ve been slumping, a lot.

Iowa*** - Lunardi has them as a 4. Don’t understand this.

Illinois* - Not very likely at all, but Illinois is not playing great basketball right now.

Gonzaga* - pretty unlikely, but they’re not improving, and their recent play shows it.

Washington**** - Washington’s climbing, they’ll need to get upset by somebody in the Pac10 Tourney Thanks to PB reader Josh for letting us know that Washington got Carmelo-ized byt Malik Hairston and the Ducks.

UNC* - Very unlikely at this point. UNC is playing top 10 ball over the last 5 games.

Memphis* - If they get blown out early in the CUSA tournament, they could fall, but KU would need to win B12 tournament.

The bottom line is that KU has and outside chance for a 3 seed. I think they’re a 5 if they win one game, a 4 if they win 2, and a 3 if they win 3. Best case - Memphis loses early and big, KU wins B12 tournament, and KU slides into a 3 seed in Dallas.

Most likely scenario: KU wins on Friday and Saturday and gets the lowest 4, and plays in Salt Lake City and uses run-on sentences in their post game interview and doesn’t care.

You could go on gut instinct, and lose, or spend hours and hours poring over endless statistics.

Or if you’re smart, you could spend a few bucks to have access to the same proprietary tools that Vegas uses to pick games. I know I’ll be using the BracketBrains tool this year, and I recommend you do the same. Click on the banner below to check it out, but I’m pretty sure you’ll be as impressed as I am.

Most of the bracket predictions out there are pretty lame. Most have Boston College and KU as 6-7 seeds, which, in my opinion, is bad, bad math. The tournament is less than a month away now, and I think it’s time to start making actual predictions about what seed teams will end up with. This seems to me to be a better use of time than “if the season ended today” predictions. The season doesn’t end today. This is a predictive bracket. I encourage your feedback. I admit I’m mailing it in for the 13-16 seeds.

The First Phog Blog Bracket (2/20/06):

1 Seeds:
Duke, UConn, Villanova, Memphis

2 Seeds:
Gonzaga, Pittsburgh, Texas (-), Ohio State

3 Seeds:
Boston College, Florida, Tennessee, Iowa

4 Seeds:
Kansas, Illinois, West Virginia, GW

5 Seeds
UCLA, North Carolina State, Michigan State, Georgetown

6 Seeds
LSU, Oklahoma, UNC, George Mason

7 Seeds
Northern Iowa, Wisconsin, Bucknell, Washington

8 Seeds
Cal, Nevada, Marquette, Alabama

9 Seeds
Creighton, So. Illinois, Seton Hall, Wichita St

10 Seeds
Arizona, Kentucky, Arkansas, Missouri State

11 Seeds
UAB, Air Force, Syracuse, Colorado

12 Seeds
W. Kentucky, San Diego State, UW-Milwaukee, NC-Wilmington

13 Seeds
Northwestern State, Montana, Akron, Iona

14 Seeds
Winthrop, Murray State, Penn, Pacific

15 Seeds
FDU, Belmont, IUPUI, Northern Arizona

16 Seeds
Georgia Southern, Albany, Delaware State, Play-in

I’ve got a feeling this thing has more holes in it than a horse-trader’s mule, or will have come Selection Sunday, but hey, there’s only so much you can do.

UT is a good team, but as Mark pointed out, they are a vulnerable team. This strikes me as an important point and one that I should have considered more.

Last year, we were a good team, but we were an extremely vulnerable team, particularly once JR started going cold. Indeed, a lot of Roy’s teams were vulnerable - to athleticism, to cold shooting, to slobberknocking fisticuffs. I hadn’t considered it before, but Self seems to want to build teams that don’t have these vulnerabilities.

Using one primary ballhandler leaves you up a creek if he gets injured or foul prone. Self’s solution: have two to three guys who can handle and dish the rock. Not only does this work as a sort of insurance policy, but it also makes it harder for opposing coaches to prepare for you.

Having guards that can penetrate and create offense leaves you much less reliant on warm shooting. Heck, on Monday we shot 1/7 from behind the arc and still won by 15 on the road in Stillwater to a team that owned UT (and by the way, OSU may have played better on offense against UT, but I think you have to give credit to KU’s defense for that).

And in slobberknocking fisticuffs we’ve shown ourselves more than capable of knocking more slobber and cuffing more fists. Want to slow up the game and keep it ugly? Fine. You’ll be tired at about the 8 minute mark and we’ll run you silly from then on out.

I’ve been a big Self supporter, but I think that was more a result of my dovish personality towards KU hoops than any keen understanding of exactly what he was doing. But now his vision for the program is coming into focus for me, and I really like what I’m seeing. This Self team is tough, athletic and enthusiastic, and I love it.

And this team is not very vulnerable, at least not in the Williamsian sense. Our key vulnerabilities are probabably intense ball pressure at the guard spots and really hot three point shooting (but for whom is this not true?). I would add cold free throw shooting as well, but we’ve really excelled at that over the last 8 weeks, so I don’t think I can.

I just love where this team is going. I got to watch a lot of college basketball this weekend and I must echo the comments from Jayhawk fans everywhere - when national media folks ignore or denigrate Kansas, they shine a harsh light on their overpaid ignorance. The Seth Davis OU thing was perfect. We’ll probably beat OU in the league by 2-3 games and a tiebreaker, and they’re the threat?

That’s rich. This is the same guy who ELEVEN DAYS AGO called KSU - with UT, CU, OU, TT and KU still left on their schedule - a possible NCAA tournament team.

Seth, bubby! Tell me you don’t believe the things you say on TV!

KU is up to 18 in the ESPN/USA Today poll as well.