Ding dong, Bracket Buster is dead

[DUBulldog]

Anybody know when the Bracket Buster pairings will be announced?

[isumvc1]

Anybody know when the Bracket Buster pairings will be announced?

the espn site says Jan. 28th, however I have seen Feb. 4th as the new date, it could be the TV games are announced Jan 28th and all the rest Feb. 4th??

[TheAsianSensation]

The TV guides I've seen has the bracketbuster selection show on 2/4. They broadcasted it in years past, so I'm going to assume this listing takes precedence.

[isumvc1]

The TV guides I've seen has the bracketbuster selection show on 2/4. They broadcasted it in years past, so I'm going to assume this listing takes precedence.

I looked, you're right

[TheAsianSensation]

HOME
Belmont 14
Wichita St 17
Indiana St 51
St Mary's 59
Akron 68
Valparaiso 83
Western Michigan 92
Murray St 95
Northern Iowa 97
Tennessee St 98
Oral Roberts 99
UIC 100
Long Beach St 103
Davidson 112
Vermont 132
Western Illinois 133
Utah St 134
Drake 135
Niagara 141
Wright St 145
Fairfield 154
Charleston 155
Rider 157
Oakland 158
Texas-Arlington 163
Loyola (Chi) 165
Youngstown St 171
UNC Asheville 180
Cal Poly 190
UC Santa Barbara 193
Toledo 200
Southern Illinois 205
Eastern Michigan 216
Hawaii 228
Buffalo 229
Campbell 237
SE Missouri St 240
UC Davis 253
Winthrop 267
Marist 270
Tennessee Tech 273
High Point 279
Texas-San Antonio 280
Northern Illinois 282
Central Arkansas 288
Western Carolina 292
IPFW 300
Siena 303
IUPUI 304
Southern Utah 308
TAMU-CC 328
Nebraska Omaha 291
Montana St 302
Tennessee-Martin 309
Portland St 319
Lamar 324
Idaho St 330
Eastern Washington 334
Hampton 337
Presbyterian 343
Liberty 344

AWAY
Creighton 28
North Dakota St 58
South Dakota St 60
Eastern Kentucky 75
Stephen F Austin 77
Detroit 86
Ohio 96
Northwestern St 101
Loyola (MD) 102
Evansville 107
Iona 108
Pacific 109
Denver 120
Canisius 123
Montana 124
Savannah St 125
Illinois St 131
Jacksonville St 146
Weber St 147
Albany 161
Green Bay 166
Bradley 167
Morehead St 168
Charleston Southern 173
Idaho 174
Kent St 184
UC Irvine 188
Central Michigan 201
Cleveland St 209
Cal St Northridge 218
Loyola Marymount 223
Missouri St 233
Northern Arizona 235
South Dakota 238
Cal St Fullerton 243
SE Louisiana 244
Nicholls St 248
Ball St 249
McNeese St 250
Miami (OH) 252
Sam Houston St 255
Sacramento St 260
Gardner-Webb 261
Manhattan 266
Texas St 268
St Peter's 269
Coastal Carolina 271
Morgan St 272
SIU-E 276
UMKC 278
North Dakota 285
Radford 289
Eastern Illinois 295
Bowling Green 299
Milwaukee 311
VMI 312
Northern Colorado 315
UC Riverside 322
Citadel 336
Austin Peay 341
Longwood 346

[MVCfans]

What an awful year for Bracket Busters. There's really no chance these games are going to do a bit of good for any MVC teams.

[TheAsianSensation]

What an awful year for Bracket Busters. There's really no chance these games are going to do a bit of good for any MVC teams.

I would say Creighton could definitely use a quality road win after the chance at Wichita went begging. Belmont game could easily be the difference between playing in Kansas City or getting shipped out cross-country.

[MVCfans]

What an awful year for Bracket Busters. There's really no chance these games are going to do a bit of good for any MVC teams.

I would say Creighton could definitely use a quality road win after the chance at Wichita went begging. Belmont game could easily be the difference between playing in Kansas City or getting shipped out cross-country.

Fair point. A win over Belmont might not mean much to people, but a road win over a Top 50 team does matter to the computers (and thus the committee).

[TheAsianSensation]

ESPN2

1) Creighton at Belmont - The easy one to predict.
2) South Dakota St at Wichita St - Looks like SDSU has won the war of the XDSUs for this game.
3) Stephen F Austin at St Mary's - I'll finally cede on SFA plummeting down the RPIs, plus they're the best candidate to ship out west now.
4) Detroit at Indiana St - ISU jumps up. The difference? I made a mistake last projection - I put Detroit and Akron together when they already played this season. All of a sudden, I can't put them in with either Akron or Valpo, so it falls into ISU's lap. Funny how these things work.
5) Ohio at Valparaiso - Ohio is streaking up the board. I could see them ending up with ISU too, if ESPN tries to do something funky with the pairings

ESPNU
6) North Dakota St at Akron - It's semantics, but this could easily get the bump up to ESPN2 in place of DU/ISU.
7) Evansville at Western Michigan - UE falls a couple of spots in the pecking order. After some debate, I'm sending them to the MAC West leaders even though I already don't like it.
8) Loyola (MD) at Murray St
9) Eastern Kentucky at Davidson - By the way, UE/Davidson is another matchup that is easily possible - and I think UE would like it too. SoCon leaders here.

ESPN3
10) Montana at Long Beach St
11) Iona at Vermont
12) Northwestern St at Utah St - Boy, I missed on my USU projection. My bad.
13) Denver at Oral Roberts

There's a bit of a logjam at the end of the home list - borderline top 100 RPIs being left out on the home side (UNI, Tennessee St, and UIC), plus one conference leader (Niagara) also out.

Rest of MVC projections:
Pacific at Northern Iowa - Honestly, not sure what to do with UNI here. There's just nothing left in the midwest unless you want Green Bay. If Pacific agrees to this, UNI would get a road game at a WCC school in 2 years. Not the worst thing in the world.
Bradley at Western Illinois - It still fits like a glove, TV or not.
Green Bay at Drake - Comment with UNI applies here too.
Illinois St at Oakland - You could do worse this far down.
Missouri St at Southeast Missouri St - Now I'm just throwing darts, honestly.
Cleveland St at Southern Illinois - Darts.

[cpacmel]

Bradley at Western Illinois - It still fits like a glove, TV or not.
Green Bay at Drake - Comment with UNI applies here too.
Illinois St at Oakland - You could do worse this far down.

Can we throw up these profiles /resumes for more in depth thinking?

Illinois State (12-9)
RPI 131
SOS 112

Drake (8-10)
RPI 135
SOS 59

Bradley (12-9)
RPI 167
SOS 201

Now tell me who should go with who:

WIU (14-5)
RPI 133
SOS 316

Green Bay (10-10)
RPI 166
SOS 147

Oakland (8-13)
RPI 158
SOS 108

TAS, I enjoy your work. But I have to say, I can't really agree with your projections here. ISU's RPI is 36 spots ahead of Bradley's, but you slot them with Oakland, who's RPI's only 9 spots better than Bradley's?

ISU deserves a better draw than Bradley. And one would have a good debate that Drake might too. Especially when you consider their entire body of work, and not just the first 8 or 9 conference games.