After 143 NCAA Division I Men’s basketball games were played four days ago, another 118 games have been played and yet another set of potential number one seeds have fallen. Texas Tech (15-9) picked up a 65-63 win over #3 Oklahoma (20-4) in Lubbock, Texas. The same night, #4 Iowa (20-6) fell to a then-sub-.500 Penn State (13-13) team in State College, PA. Even more in step with the chaotic race for a one seed this season, #5 North Carolina (21-5) were edged by their bitter rival #20 Duke (20-6) at home in Chapel Hill, NC; 74-73.

Other key games played out as St. Bonaventure (17-7; bubble team) lost 64-71 to lowly LaSalle (6-18). Stony Brook’s (22-5) stranglehold over the America East conference doesn’t seem too tight as Albany (22-7) picked up a much needed 82-70 win.

Meanwhile, the SEC continues to struggle as hot-starting South Carolina (21-5) lost 72-67 to Missouri (10-16) and the once division leading LSU Tigers (16-10) lost to Alabama (16-9), 76-69.

In this edition, we update the rankings based on these games and give insight to the our predicted state of the NCAA tournament entries.

March Madness Current Entrants:

Using the current games played, the locations of the games, and the disparity of scores, we are able to build out a current state of the 2016 March Madness Tournament.

Rules: In order to make the tournament, a team must win their conference tournament, win the Ivy League regular season, or become an “at-large” bid that is selected based on merit by an NCAA committee.

In this post, we give an updated rankings for all 351 NCAA Division I teams. But first, we identify the current teams on pace (projected by our models) for becoming conference champions and “at-large” bids.

It should be noted that our rankings will include the suspended Southern Methodist University, whereas the AP Top 25 Coaches’ Poll does not include the Mustangs. Also, in recent light of team discipline, Louisville has also been disqualified from the post-season.

Other Teams Disqualified: Abilene Christian, Grand Canyon, Incarnate Word, Mass – Lowell, Northern Kentucky, NJIT (Transition to Division 1); Alcorn State, Central Arkansas, Florida A&M, Stetson (NCAA Violations: APR); Missouri, Pacific, Southern Mississippi (Self-Imposed)

Fitting our models, we find that there is a 0.5567 r-squared, indicating an “O.K. but no-where predictive” fit to the games played. Note that an r-squared value of 0.25 typically indicates coin flips. Using the rankings as determination for conference winners, we have the following teams with automatic bids:

1. America East: Stony Brook (22-5, 13-1)
2. American: Connecticut (18-7, 8-4)
3. Atlantic 10: Dayton (21-4, 11-2)
4. Atlantic Coast: Virginia (21-5, 10-4)
5. Atlantic Sun: North Florida (18-10, 7-4)
6. Big 12: Kansas (22-4, 10-3)
7. Big East: Villanova (23-3, 12-1)
8. Big Sky: Weber State (18-7, 10-2)
9. Big South: UNC Asheville (17-9, 10-4)
10. Big Ten: Michigan State (21-5, 8-5)
11. Big West: Hawaii (20-3, 9-1)
12. Colonial Athletic: UNC – Wilmington (20-5, 12-2)
13. Conference USA: UAB (21-5, 11-2)
14. Horizon League: Valparaiso (22-5, 12-2)
15. Ivy League: Yale (17-5, 8-0)
16. Metro Atlantic: Monmouth (22-5, 14-2)
17. Mid-American: Akron (21-5, 10-3)
18. Mid-Eastern: Hampton (15-9, 10-2)
19. Missouri Valley: Wichita State (19-7, 12-2)
20. Mountain West: San Diego State (19-7, 12-1)
21. Northeast: Wagner (16-9, 9-5)
22. Ohio Valley: Belmont (18-9, 10-3)
23. Pac-12: Oregon (20-6, 9-4)
24. Patriot League: Navy (18-10, 9-6)
25. Southeastern: Kentucky (19-6, 9-3)
26. Southern: Chattanooga (23-4, 12-2)
27. Southland: Stephen F. Austin (19-5, 12-0)
28. Southwestern Athletic: Southern (18-8, 10-3)
29. Summit League: South Dakota State (20-6, 9-3)
30. Sun Belt: Arkansas Little Rock (22-3, 12-2)
31. West Coast: Gonzaga (20-6, 12-2)
32. Western Athletic: New Mexico State (18-9, 9-1)

Dropped Out: Oklahoma (20-5, 8-5 Big 12), Iowa (20-6, 11-3 Big Ten)

Jumped In: Kansas, Michigan State

The remaining 36 “at-large” teams are then the top 36 teams in our rankings. These 36 teams are given as:

1. Oklahoma (20-5, 8-5)
2. Xavier (23-3, 11-3)
3. Miami (FL) (21-4, 10-3)
4. West Virginia (20-6, 9-4)
5. Maryland (22-4, 10-3)
6. North Carolina (21-5, 10-3)
7. Iowa (20-6, 11-3)
8. Duke (20-6, 9-4)
9. Iowa State (18-8, 7-6)
10. Purdue (21-6, 9-5)
11. Arizona (22-5, 10-4)
12. Baylor (19-7, 8-5)
13. Texas (17-9, 8-5)
14. Utah (19-7, 8-5)
15. St. Joseph’s (22-4, 11-2)
16. Notre Dame (18-7, 9-4)
17. Colorado (19-8, 8-6)
18. Indiana (21-6, 11-3)
19. Texas Tech (16-9, 6-7)
20. Texas A&M (19-7, 8-5)
21. Seton Hall (18-7, 8-5)
22. Butler (18-8, 7-7)
23. California (17-8, 7-5)
24. Michigan (19-8, 9-5)
25. South Carolina (21-5, 8-5)
26. Pittsburgh (18-7, 7-6)
27. Providence (19-8, 7-7)
28. Syracuse (18-9, 8-6)
29. USC (19-7, 8-5)
30. Florida (17-9, 8-5)
31. Cincinnati (19-7, 9-4)
32. Oregon State (15-9, 5-7)
33. Wisconsin (16-9, 8-4)
34. Alabama (16-9, 7-6)
35. Kansas State (15-11, 4-9)
36. Creighton (17-10, 8-6)

DROPPED OUT: Florida State (16-10, 6-8), Vanderbilt (15-11, 7-6)

SNEAKED IN: Alabama, Kansas State

The next set of teams are our current bubble teams. These are teams that are close to making the NCAA Tournament but are on the outside looking in.

1. Florida State (16-10, 6-8)
2. Stanford (12-11, 5-7)
3. Washington (15-10, 7-6)
4. Clemson (16-10, 9-5)
5. George Washington (19-7, 8-5)
6. Vanderbilt (15-11, 7-6)
7. VCU (19-7, 11-2)
8. St. Mary’s (20-4, 11-3)
9. UCLA (14-11, 5-7)
10. Tulsa (16-9, 8-5)

FLOATED OUT OF BUBBLE: St. Bonaventure (17-7, 9-4), LSU (16-10, 9-4), Marquette (16-10, 5-8)

CLIMBED INTO BUBBLE: VCU, St. Mary’s, UCLA

The current state of the NCAA Tournament is given as follows:

NCAA March Madness seedings based on our rankings as of February 17th, 2016.

NCAA March Madness seedings based on our rankings as of February 17th, 2016.

We note that we are not predicting the field of 68, but rather giving seedings based on play up to today. Our goal is to populate the March Madness tournament with current seedings; to give indication of where teams are sitting as of today. As the conference games continue to play out, the field of 68 will become much clearer.