NCAA Tournament Bracket Watch: Who joins Purdue and Alabama in first place?

Next time you’re feeling unlucky, stop by and pour one for Motoyuki Mabuchi.

In the 2008 World Series of Poker Main Event, Mabuchi started the hand with pocket votes. He hit another shot on the flop. Then another one on the river. With quads and aces, one of the most unbeatable hands in poker, Mabuchi bets his entire stack.

There was just one problem: Justin Phillips had a royal flush. The rest of the table, which oddly included actor Ray Romano, gasped loudly when shown the cards, and for good reason — the odds of these two hands happening at the same time were 1 in 2.7 billion.

So we can’t really complain about our moderately bad run this week, the task of deciding the top four seeds in the NCAA Tournament today, 45 days before this Sunday. Like the Mapuche, we already have pocket rockets in Purdue and Alabama. But in season where there is Lots of kings and queens But a few true Aces, who are the other two in first place?

This seemed so easy a week ago, when Kansas and Houston were at the top of the standings. But then the Jayhawks were attacked at home by TCU and fell again Monday night at Baylor for their third straight loss. Houston suffered an even more damaging defeat on Sunday, losing a four-way Game 3 at home to Temple. Our top seed last week, UCLA, lost in Arizona on Saturday and at USC on Thursday night, while then. 6 – Kansas State beat overall seed Iowa.

So, um… check?

Let’s take a look at the contenders to join Boilermakers and the Crimson Tide in the top row, along with reasons to bet and reasons to fold (figures as of Thursday afternoon):

Houston

the bet: Like the computer geeks who dominate online poker, cougars are algorithmic darlings. Even after losing Temple, Houston still ranks first in NET, KenPom, Sagarin, and BPI.

fold ’em: Houston beat Virginia and beat St. Mary’s in Fort Worth, but the resume is little light outside of that (Wednesday’s win at UCF gave the Cougars a fourth chip in the first quarter). AAC will not present many challenges the rest of the way. Coogs ranks sixth and fourth on KPI and SOR, the two most outcome-oriented measures.

Kansas

the bet: It was a tough stretch for Bill Self’s crew, but the three losses were against the top four seeds and two were lost on the road (including one in overtime). The 11 combined victories in Quad 1 and 2 are tied with Alabama in the country, and there’s not a bad loss to be found here against the No. 1 gridiron schedule.

fold ’em: The Jayhawks don’t look like an ace in the efficiency measures: 10 on NET and KenPom, 11 on Sagarin and 16 on BPI.

Tennessee

the bet: Volunteers are ranked second in NET, KenPom, BPI, and Sagarin. And they defeated Kansas, convincingly, in the Bahamas.

fold ’em: Only three wins in Quad 1 are offset by two curious losses in Quad 2 (Colorado at Nashville, Kentucky at home).

Arizona

the bet: The Wildcats are 9-3 in the first two quads and are proud of wins over UCLA and Tennessee. They would have a lot of geographical meaning as the number one seed in the Western Region.

fold ’em: Arizona has lost to three non-tournament teams, including at home in Washington State, and the range of its metrics (11 in NET, 16 in KenPom, 20 in BPI) doesn’t look like a top seed.

Big 12 Wild Cards: Kansas State/Iowa State/Texas

the bet: The Big 12 has an amazing six teams on their best-of-four streaks this week, and this league’s champion certainly deserves a top seed. These three are tied at the top of the standings and boast a total of 17 quadruple victories.

fold ’em: K-State has some measures in the twenties and one in the thirties. Iowa’s picture looks more like a #2 seed right now. Texas? Hold them, at least until Saturday’s SEC/Big 12 showdown in Tennessee.

Well, it’s time to wait. No inconsequential choices here, but we’ve placed our bets on Houston and Tennessee this week, figuring in a group this close that Scales will win the day for the committee (and give the Fols a head-to-head tiebreaker against Kansas). But we are far from everything in those shots.

Some other quick notes on the bow:

• USC’s win over UCLA gets the Trojans on the field, while Memphis — ranked 40th in every major metric — re-enters the category. Do you want to talk more about the difference in the cutting line? Well, no, great news: Eamonn Brennan’s must-have Bubble Watch is making its 2023 debut next week!

• The final four pairs for this week are South vs. East and Midwest vs. West based on our foundation list, which you can find below. An asterisk indicates the autobid qualifier for the conference.

• If you have questions or complaints, bring them to the comments and you might be lucky enough to get a response. Deal?

(Photo by Kevin McCullar from Kansas and Santiago Vescovi from Tennessee: Kevin Jairagh/USA Today)