February 20 seeding update

Seed bands for February 20

#1: Arizona, Florida, Syracuse, Wichita St.
#2: Kansas, Duke, Villanova, San Diego State
#3: Wisconsin, Iowa State, Creighton, Michigan State 
#4: Cincinnati, Michigan, Iowa, UCLA
#5: Virginia, Saint Louis, Kentucky, Texas
#6: Ohio State, Louisville, Connecticut, Oklahoma
#7: Pittsburgh, Memphis, North Carolina, Kansas State
#8:  Massachusetts, Arizona State, Gonzaga, New Mexico
#9:  Colorado, George Washington, VCU, Stanford
#10:  Southern Methodist, Xavier, Baylor, California
#11: Minnesota, Saint Joseph's, Missouri, Oklahoma State*, Richmond*
#12:  Tennessee*, St. John's*, Louisiana Tech, Green Bay, Toledo
#13: Belmont, North Dakota St., Mercer, Stephen F. Austin
#14:  Delaware, Iona, Vermont, Georgia State
#15:  Boston U, UC Irvine, North Carolina Central, Robert Morris
#16: Utah Valley, Weber State, Yale*, Davidson*, Coastal Carolina*, Alabama State*

* Denotes teams in first-round (play-in) games

Seed analysis after the jump.

Seed bumps?

• There are 5 Big 12 teams (Kansas, Iowa State, Oklahoma, Kansas State, and Baylor) in the bottom halves of regions, so one of those teams would have to get bumped.  Right now it would probably be Kansas State. moving to an 8 and Massachusetts to a 7.   Also, Oklahoma State as a play-in 11 seed would probably get bumped to a play-in 12 seed for the same reason, so they would get swapped with Tennessee.
• There are also 5 Pac 12 teams in the top halves of regions, so perhaps Stanford would be swapped with SMU.
• There are four AAC teams and four Big Ten teams in the bottom halves of brackets as well, which could make bracket construction difficult because it limits options of where to place those teams. This is another reason why you might see Stanford and SMU swapped in this setup.  There are also four Atlantic 10 teams in the top halves.  

Reshuffling

Syracuse's shocking loss to Boston College has led me to reorder the top seeds.  It now goes Arizona, Florida, Syracuse.  Arizona has more and better wins than the other two (many of their biggest wins were on the road).  Syracuse has more good wins than Florida, but that loss to BC is just awful, and their best road win was at Pittsburgh, while Florida has a better win at Kentucky.  It's a toss-up between them, and it doesn't really matter since they'd go to the same regions regardless, but that's where it stands now.  I'm a little nervous with Arizona at #1 based on their recent play, but that's where their resume puts them.

I also dropped Saint Louis back to #5.  I watched their game last night, and they were incredibly unimpressive.  I had not seen much of them this year, but they look to me like a product of an easy schedule and a lot of lucky, close wins.  Yes, they are undefeated in the Atlantic 10, and that is a pretty strong league, but they haven't played UMass or GW yet, and got both Richmond and VCU at home, so it's not like they've played the best of that conference, and their best win in their out of conference schedule was at home against Indiana State.  Not impressive.  I replaced them at #4 with UCLA, who torched Cal on the road last night.  Virginia stays at #5 because, like Saint Louis, they have played all the bad teams in a decent conference. They may be 13-1 in the ACC, but 6 of those wins are against teams with an RPI over 100.  Iowa has more losses, but none outside the RPI top 20 (Virginia has two outside the top 50), and Iowa has two wins against the top 20, one on the road and one an obliteration of Michigan.

Full bracket to come later today, hopefully.