Poll Dancing: TBI's College Basketball Top 25 (Nov. 24 Edition)

Not really much time for a witty intro or pretty pictures on this week's Poll Dancing, we're just going to hit up the Faceplants and get on with it. Strap in.


Faceplants: #17 Colorado, #20 UConn, #25 SMU
--Despite the amount of respect I have for what Larry Shyatt's building at Wyoming (and the massive mancrush TBI harbors for Larry Nance Jr.), I can't keep CU in the top 25 after the sheer ineptitude it displayed in Laramie. For UConn, it boils down to the head-to-head. I can't leave the Huskies in and keep West Virginia out...yet. As for SMU, they miss Markus Kennedy quite a bit, but they miss last year's Nic Moore just as much.

Poll Dancing: TBI's College Basketball Top 25 (Nov. 17 Edition)

We're only three days into the 2014-15 college basketball season, so why the hell not throw together a brand new Top 25 full of snap judgments and overreactions?

None of my Top 25 lost on the opening weekend, thank Buddha, but one did look very shaky against a motivated opponent at home on national TV. Of course, that team was ranked No. 25, so it's been replaced for now, but expect it to be back.

All in all, there's not much change, and I won't bother explaining the ones that stayed stable. After all, most of these teams were gobbling cupcakes over the weekend. However, I will share the rationale behind the few moves that were made, starting with our inaugural Faceplant of the new season.

All that after the jump.

TBI's College Basketball Opening Weekend Extravaganza: Preseason Bracketometry

Welcome back to the third post of the series that may represent the most prolific this blog gets in three months, thanks to a lot of other stuff demanding some time. We've already talked about my Top 25 picks and my All-American selections, so now it's time to jump to the real important news that will come out in March: the bracket.

If you read my conference previews (Part 1 here and Part 2 here), you'll remember that I projected the teams that I expected to make the NCAA tournament from each league. This is where we put them all together into a tournament format and determine who exactly I'm tabbing as my Final Four picks. Because unlike all those other chicken-droppings bracketologists, Bracketometry will go the extra mile and project some winners. And not just going according to seed, either (I see you out there, Athlon). There will be upsets.

Trust me, you'll all disagree with several picks. I absolutely know it. But before we get to who'll be standing on the final weekend, let's look at the other 64 who'll join them at the party after the jump.

TBI's College Basketball Opening Day Extravaganza: Top 25 Picks

I hate Christmas music, but the sentiment behind this song is valid for today. College basketball's opening day beats the living hell out of Christmas for me because 2 things:

1) There's a metric ton of hoops to watch;
2) No stressful shopping experiences.

As we prepare to tip the season off in some style (Texas Southern v. Eastern Washington = two potential conference champions opening the campaign), sit back and observe TBI's up-to-the-minute preseason top 25 and All-American picks after the jump.

Winners and Losers from College Basketball's Tip-Off Marathon

He was 18 when MSU-UK tipped off.

If you stayed up for all 29 or so hours of ESPN's College Hoops Tip-Off Marathon (aka Starbucks and Red Bull's Christmahanukwanzakah), I have two things to say to you:

1) You are a sick, maladjusted, misanthropic person who will die alone unless you adopt 18 cats; and

b) I so wish I could match that stamina and lack of daytime gainful employment/small people waking up before dawn.

Some teams had a great time tipping it off at ungodly hours, while others played like they'd already had their warm milk and binky, merely needing their favorite blankets to nod off like a toddler.

Let's look back over the two days in which we were all contemplating doing rails of coke off a hooker's ass if it would keep us awake through the second half of West Virginia/Virginia Tech.
 
Check after the jump for some of those who absorbed should-be-illegal benefits and some who took must-be-pitied damage for even being in the vicinity of the Marathon.

Back Iron Bracketometry Feb. 9: Signs of Life for Kentucky, Illinois

I was once a Professor of Sports Philosophy on 4 Quarters Radio (still in occasional podcast form) before I got a doctorate in Bracketometry. As a fully accredited doctor, I'm qualified to pronounce college basketball teams' tournament hopes alive and dead.

There are a few schools who looked to be on life support a couple of weeks ago that are recovering nicely. Conversely, we've got some patients who are deteriorating before our eyes.

Read on to see if any of your loved ones are approaching terminal status.

Back Iron Bracketometry: Could Kentucky vs. Bucknell Happen?

In the second week of the expanded Back Iron Index, we see that the struggles of teams near the top of the human polls can certainly have some bearing on the computer ranks as well.

While we may not have much use for the SEC as a whole, only myopic jingos can deny that Florida has been playing some strong basketball. That solid ball has earned them five number-one rankings among the 10 BII metrics, good for the new No. 1 overall seed.

Don't expect Duke to go away quietly, though. The Blue Devils are still the only team ranked in the top five all the way across the BII board. Ryan Kelly is still conspicuous by his absence, but freshman Amile Jefferson is getting his legs under him in ACC play. Jefferson has potted averages of 10 points, seven rebounds and almost two blocks per game over his last four. Now, perhaps he can work on learning not to foul everyone he sees (15 fouls in those four games).

At the other end of the Bracketometry projections, Big Blue Nation now needs to go into a Big Red Panic. More explanation after the jump.

Basketball Times Mean to Calipari; Drops Hammer on Kevin Ollie, UConn

Every five years, the Basketball Times evaluates those college basketball programs and coaches that have won two-thirds of their games over that span. The schools are ranked on winning percentage, NBA players, graduation rate, academic reputation (according to US News and World Report) and a vote of panelists assessing program cleanliness.

The 2012 release is out, and in the midst of some heavy hitters are some surprising mid- and low-majors.

The winner probably won't surprise you, but I guarantee there's one top-five school that will draw a response along the lines of "WTF?" More after the jump.

2012 Bilas Invitational Tournament: East Region Rounds 1 and 2

If you're like me, you're seeking college basketball news to read and write about aside from the usual offseason slobbering over high school players. Sometimes, we have to invent that news ourselves. Spreading rumors about coaches on the hot seat is considered tacky and indecorous when we don't have the ear of any prominent athletic directors, though.

On a blog that went to the effort of seeding and bracketing a full tournament that trumpets itself as featuring "the real best 68 teams in the nation," it almost seems like something's missing if we don't actually play it through and see how the event would have unfolded. The only way I know of to do that involves our boys at WhatIf Sports.

WhatIf gives you options to match nearly every team in America against one another and decide how those games would have played out. Depth chart changes can even be made, reflecting such real-world events as Fab Melo's ineligibility for Syracuse.

The format for the Bilas Invitational was that each matchup would be simulated seven times, in effect making each game an NBA-style series. The first four were each under the "Use Home Court" option. Any beyond that used the "Neutral Court" option.

The results that will be posted are of the winning team's fourth win in that seven-game series. You can go simulate these games and you'll get highly different results, but these are what the simulator produced for me.

Go here to take a look at the full S-Curve, and the bracket is here. We'll start with the overall top seed, the Kentucky Wildcats, and their journey through the East Region.