Bracketology 2018: March Madness’ early projections have been turned upside-down

November’s preseason bracket? That became kindling back in early December. So, it should be no surprise that the first real projection of what’s been a topsy-turvy season features an incredible 31 new entrants — including a No. 1 and No. 2 seed.

While two of the top four teams overall in this projection, the Duke Blue Devils and Michigan State Spartans, haven’t budged since November, and the current No. 1 team overall, the Villanova Wildcats, jumped a mere seed line, the same can’t be said for the West Region’s top seed.

The Oklahoma Sooners started the season as the very first team out of my November bracket. But fueled by Trae Young‘s meteoric rise up the National Player of the Year and NBA draft charts, Lon Kruger’s squad has already surged past last season’s win total of 11 and onto the top line of January’s first projection. Might the Kansas Jayhawks‘ streak of Big 12 titles be in the Sooners’ sights? Perhaps, but Oklahoma isn’t alone in harboring hopes of knocking Bill Self’s team off its lofty perch.

Line two features another national surprise — the Arizona State Sun Devils — the seventh team out of my November bracket. Yet after victories over the Kansas State Wildcats and Xavier Musketeers in Las Vegas and a shocking 95-85 win over Kansas at Phog Allen Fieldhouse, Bobby Hurley’s third squad in Tempe is the first to make national noise. And that’s true even after the Sun Devils dropped their first two Pac-12 games of the season — falling to the Arizona Wildcats on Saturday in Tucson and the Colorado Buffaloes last night in Boulder. (Trust me. Both of those games happened, even if you weren’t able to watch them since they aired on Pac-12 Network.) But if ASU doesn’t end its skid soon, expect a seeding correction in the near future.

Another Big 12 contender, West Virginia; the nation’s leader in the reconfigured quality win category, Purdue; and Villanova’s main threat for the Big East crown, Xavier, join Arizona State as No. 2 seeds.

Thanks to an 0-3 trip to the Battle 4 Atlantis, Arizona had to spend the post-Thanksgiving period rebuilding its reputation and profile — and thanks to nine straight victories, capped by Thursday’s gutsy victory at Utah, Sean Miller’s club is back among the protected seeds. The Wildcats are the top No. 3 seed, ahead of defending national champ North Carolina, resurgent Virginia, and Kansas.

Looking at the No. 4 seeds, the weirdness alluded to in my headline again becomes apparent, as does the seriousness of the threat to Kansas’s Big 12 title run. Sure, you probably expected to see Kentucky here, as growing pains are again an issue for talented, but freshman-heavy Wildcat squads. But did you think the same of TCU (an eight in November), Seton Hall (a seven) and Texas Tech (in the heavily-populated “Also Considered” group)? If you had any of those three teams as a threat to rank among the nation’s top 16 teams back in November, you should probably take up residence in one of Las Vegas’s many sportsbooks.

After today’s full bracket and rundown, I’ll have some thoughts on a quartet of teams you’re probably surprised to not see included and how the Selection Committee’s new definition of “quality win” gives these squads real hope, while dashing those of others, as conference play unfolds.

SEC: 8
ACC: 7
Big 12 and Big East: 6 each
Big Ten: 5
American and Pac-12: 4 each
Atlantic 10, Mountain West and WCC: 2 each
One-Bid Conferences: 22

Here on Jan. 5, Louisville, Notre Dame, and Kansas State all sit at 11-3, while Baylor is 10-4. All four rank among KenPom’s top 40. Yet the quartet cannot be found in today’s projection, with only Mike Brey’s Irish — the seventh team out, even with Bonzie Colson out for the foreseeable future — particularly close to the cut line. The NCAA’s preferred metric, the omnipresent and oft-despised Ratings Percentage Index (RPI), only has love for the No. 34-ranked Cardinals — the Fighting Irish rank No. 61, the Wildcats No. 97, and the Bears a stunningly-low No. 117 (according to WarrenNolan.com’s live RPI table).

The Selection Committee’s offseason recalibration of the “quality win” works against including these four squads (and several other teams, to be honest) in an early January projection. Yet this change simultaneously offers them all very real hope of eventual inclusion. Game location now has more importance, with the most visible change coming to the selection sheets the Committee uses to compare teams. These no longer group a team’s results solely by opponent RPI rankings. Now, outcomes are grouped into tiers, with more credit given for games played away from home, including at neutral sites. This is similar to the “Tiers of Joy” that Ken Pomeroy added to his team pages in Jan. 2016.

With this change, top 50 and 100 RPI wins are out and Tier 1 and 2 victories are in. But what does that mean in reality? Well, if all games were scheduled for neutral sites, there would be no change to write about. Top 50 results would still fall under Tier 1 and games played against teams ranked between 51 and 100 within Tier 2. However, at this stage of the season, home and road games dominate. And the Committee will give teams less credit for quality results in their own buildings. From this point forward, only home games played against the top 75 teams fall under Tiers 1 and 2, with only those scheduled against the top 30 qualifying for the highest grouping. On the flip side, true road games against the top 135 qualify for Tier 1 and 2 status, with trips to the top 75 earning Tier 1 status.

Going back to my four examples, Louisville, Notre Dame, Kansas State, and Baylor have so far managed a 4-13 record in Tier 1 and 2 games, with only the Fighting Irish’s upset win over Wichita State in the Maui Jim Maui Invitational final and Baylor’s Hall of Fame Classic triumph over Creighton qualifying as Tier 1 wins. Meanwhile, the group is a perfect 25-0 in Tier 4 games, with Baylor and Notre Dame adding non-Division I wins, which the Committee doesn’t consider, to that total. In other words, the at-large candidate’s old frenemy, non-conference scheduling, keeps all four out on Jan. 5.

But much like a strong Big 12 helped push a K-State team that played a relatively weak non-conference slate (167th per RPI and 305th in KenPom) into the 2017 field, this season’s ACC should boost Louisville and Notre Dame and a tremendously powerful Big 12 will keep the Wildcats and Baylor alive. When I wrote this on Thursday evening, Notre Dame had seven Tier 1 win opportunities left on its schedule, with another four Tier 2 possibilities out there. Things are even rosier for Louisville, which has 10 Tier 1 games alone on its remaining slate.

But both Baylor and Kansas State have to love their chances even more, thanks to the presence of nine Big 12 teams in the RPI top 100. That means the Bears and Wildcats could each face up to 10 Tier 1 foes and another four from Tier 2 before the regular season concludes. And none of these totals include conference tournament play when neutral-site matchups are back in play!

When you compare a power conference’s teams remaining quality win chances with those available to the two mid-majors, well, there’s really no comparison. For example, when you look at the two mids currently in the “first eight out” group — the Belmont Bruins and Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders — you’ll quickly understand why the at-large pool has become so power conference-heavy in recent seasons. The Bruins and Blue Raiders are only scheduled to play a total of five Tier 1 or 2 games in league play, with only Middle’s trip against the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers qualifying for the loftier status.

In other words, don’t expect to hear any real surprise names announced on Selection Sunday, which is now nine weeks and two days away.