ESPN BracketBuster: The Introduction

142 teams will participate in this year’s BracketBuster, in something that has never been done before. I will predict all 71 games. I know what you are thinking, no way anyone would have enough time to do that. Well guess what, someone does.

First off are the 13 TV games, unlike last year there seems to be no skeleton schedule. The network can put games at whatever time they want during the weekend. With 26 teams playing on TV, some standard must be set. I say you need to have 13 wins if you think you belong on TV. Why? These are teams that are looking for an a resume builder for the NCAA tournament. Most teams will play 5-6 games before the BracketBuster weekend. Last season 6 non-BCS conference teams were at-large bids. They had 30, 26, 25, 24, 23 and 22 wins. In 2010 8 non-BCS conference teams were at-large bids 29, 29, 27 26, 26, 26, 25 and 24 wins for those teams. Simple fact if you don’t have 13 yet the chances that you could get to 25 with 12-15 games left before Selection Sunday are slim. (This knocks out Butler, College of Charleston, Oakland and UCSB... it should have knocked out Buffalo, but they get a wild card on Rule #2)

With the exception of teams in probable “multi-bid” leagues West Coast Conference (WCC) and Missouri Valley (MVC) this season, you need to be within striking distance of winning the regular season. Two games out in a one bid league is still a lot of ground to make up, especially if you have lost to all three teams ahead of you (that is Kent State... however Buffalo is 1 game out and beat the team in first)

The third thing I look at is geographical logistics, a little more allowance is accepted for the TV games, as they want the 13 best matchup. But Hawaii to Maine is never going to happen unless they are the #1 and #2 teams in the country. I try to keep match-ups 4-13 within 700 miles. With the non TV match-ups try to keep it to 400 miles (Toledo was 3-24 when they visited a 14-15 CSU team in 2009).

After ranking all the teams my top 13 home teams in order are Creighton, Murray St Cleveland St, Oral Roberts, Iona, Davidson, South Dakota St., Ohio, Weber St, Virginia Commonwealth, George Mason, New Mexico St and Loyola Maryland (Kent St, Coastal Carolina, Missouri St and Wisconsin Milwaukee would be the next 4 in.)

For the away teams we go St. Mary’s, Wichita St, Nevada, Long Beach St, UNI, Drexel, Akron, Valparaiso, UNC-Asheville, Drake, Texas-Arlington, Buffalo, Old Dominion (The away teams this year are significantly weaker at the top then the home so Lamar, and College of Charleston are really the only two who get left out).

For the match-ups visit ... ESPN BracketBuster TV Matchups