After another three days, the season returned to its wild form as Top 10 teams went a combined 3-3. #5 Xavier exorcised its demons against #1 Villanova in a 90-83 win on Wednesday, February 24th. On the same night, #9 Arizona dropped a 72-75 contest in Colorado. The big game of that night was the 67-59 upset picked up by surging Wisconsin over slumping #8 Iowa.

In other key games, Princeton knocked off Columbia to make the Ivy League turn into a two-horse race with a week to go. Marquette picked up a 66-61 bubble saving game against Creighton.

Meanwhile, the Atlantic Sun wrapped up its regular season and is the first conference to head into its post-season.

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 0.5416 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 (23-5, 14-1)
2. American: Connecticut (20-8, 10-5)
3. Atlantic 10: Dayton (22-5, 12-3)
4. Atlantic Coast: North Carolina (23-5, 12-3)
5. Atlantic Sun: North Florida (21-10, 10-4)
6. Big 12: Kansas (24-4, 12-3)
7. Big East: Villanova (24-4, 13-2)
8. Big Sky: Weber State (21-7, 13-2)
9. Big South: Winthrop (20-8, 12-5)
10. Big Ten: Michigan State (23-5, 10-5)
11. Big West: Hawaii (22-4, 11-2)
12. Colonial Athletic: Hofstra (21-8, 13-4)
13. Conference USA: UAB (23-5, 13-2)
14. Horizon League: Valparaiso (25-5, 15-2)
15. Ivy League: Princeton (19-5, 9-1)
16. Metro Atlantic: Monmouth (24-6, 16-3)
17. Mid-American: Akron (22-7, 11-5)
18. Mid-Eastern: Hampton (16-9, 11-2)
19. Missouri Valley: Wichita State (22-7, 15-2)
20. Mountain West: San Diego State (21-7, 14-1)
21. Northeast: Wagner (19-9, 12-5)
22. Ohio Valley: Belmont (20-9, 12-3)
23. Pac-12: Oregon (22-6, 11-4)
24. Patriot League: Bucknell (16-12, 13-4)
25. Southeastern: Kentucky (21-7, 11-4)
26. Southern: Chattanooga (24-5, 13-3)
27. Southland: Stephen F. Austin (21-5, 14-0)
28. Southwestern Athletic: Texas Southern (14-12, 13-1)
29. Summit League: South Dakota State (22-7, 11-4)
30. Sun Belt: Arkansas Little Rock (25-3, 15-2)
31. West Coast: St. Mary’s (23-4, 14-3)
32. Western Athletic: New Mexico State (20-9, 11-1)

Dropped Out: Miami (22-5, 11-4), UNC – Wilmington (21-6, 13-3)

Jumped In: North Carolina, Hofstra

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

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

DROPPED OUT: Creighton (17-11, 8-7), Vanderbilt (17-11, 9-6), Kansas State (15-13, 4-11)

SNEAKED IN: Stanford, Tulsa, George Washington

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. Vanderbilt (17-11, 9-6)
2. Kansas State (15-13, 4-11)
3. Washington (16-12, 8-8)
4. Creighton (17-11, 8-7)
5. Marquette (18-10, 7-8)
6. Georgia Tech (16-12, 6-9)
7. St. Bonaventure (19-7, 11-4)
8. Florida State (16-12, 6-10)
9. UCLA (15-13, 6-9)
10. Alabama (16-11, 7-8)

FLOATED OUT OF BUBBLE: VCU (20-8, 12-3), Gonzaga (22-7, 14-3)

CLIMBED INTO BUBBLE: Marquette, St. Bonaventure

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

NCAA March Madness seedings based on our rankings as of February 26th, 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.