Wisconsin bracketology update: Week 6
Where do the Badgers stand in the latest NCAA Tournament bracket projections?
The Wisconsin basketball team is starting to get into the thick of things. Through nine games, the Badgers are 7-2 overall and have already played a conference game with another one tomorrow on the road against the No. 22 Nebraska Cornhuskers.
Wisconsin’s losses to BYU and TCU dropped the Badgers down, but they have a chance to really boost their resume in the coming weeks.
Here is where the Badgers fall in the latest NCAA Tournament bracket projections.
Wisconsin’s tournament resume
Record: 7-2 overall; 1-0 in Big Ten
Net Ranking: No. 55
Quadrant* Wins
vs. Quadrant 1: 0-1
vs. Quadrant 2: 2-1
vs. Quadrant 3: 0-0
vs. Quadrant 4: 5-0
Wisconsin’s game against BYU has been the only Quad 1 game they’ve played so far. The dominating win against Marquette didn’t help the Badgers much in their resume, as the Golden Eagles are having a tough start to the season and are only a Quad 4 win for the Badgers.
*College basketball quadrants categorize wins and losses based on the opponent’s NET ranking and the game’s location (home, neutral, or away). Quadrant 1 represents the highest quality wins (e.g., a home game against a top-30 NET team), while Quadrant 4 represents the lowest quality wins. A strong record with multiple Quadrant 1 wins is a key factor for NCAA tournament selection.
Joe Lunardi’s Bracketology - ESPN
ESPN’s Joe Lunardi updates his bracketology projections weekly, giving us a relatively accurate and up-to-date prediction on where the Badgers would be in the NCAA Tournament field if it started today.
In his latest projections, updated on December 9th, Lunardi has the Badgers as a 9-seed in Greenville as a part of the East bracket. If these projections were to come to fruition, the Badgers would take on the 8th-seeded Georgia Bulldogs.
It would be a tough draw for the Badgers, as they would likely meet the 1-seed Duke Blue Devils in the second round right away.
The top seeds in the West bracket in this projection are Duke (1-seed), UCONN (2-seed), Vanderbilt (3-seed), and Illinois (4-seed).
Bart Torvik tournament projections
Barttorvik.com is a college basketball analytics website, similar to KenPom. NCAA Tournament projections are among the many metrics on the website. As the Badgers play, the metric and projections will be updated.
As of right now, this is where the Badgers stand in those projections.
Projected Record: 19-12 (11-9 in B1G)
Tourney Odds: 82.6%
Auto Bid Odds: 3.3%
Tourney Seed: 7.4
Bart Torvik has the Badgers higher than Lunardi as it currently stands right now with a projected seed around 7.4. They still have a great shot at making the NCAA Tournament with an 82.6% chance.
Odds they get in as an automatic qualifier by winning the Big Ten are a lot lower at just 3.3%.
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