Bracketology Report – 2nd Edition

Licensed in the State of Iowa

If you are in the market to buy or sell a home in the State of Iowa, the JMR Real Estate Team is the team to help you with your real estate needs! We are happy to support NAIA Men’s Basketball and wish every team the best of luck as you work to reach your goals this season!

NAIA MBB Bracketology Report

This isn’t an official bracket from the committee, just simply a guide to have some fun with as we enter the most crucial part of the regular season! For us, we try to do the impossible, by trying to think like the committee. We use every data point they use, including some eye test for us, to come up with our field of 64 teams. While we have been very good at getting most of the teams right (64-64 twice in the past 5 seasons with 63 of 64 twice, and once with 62 of 64), it is much tougher to get the seed lines and opening round pods correct. We have gotten a few, but don’t think we will ever have a 100% matching bracket on our final bracket compared to the official bracket. That is okay though, our goal is to paint the picture for the post season and bring some hype to conference races, tournaments and ultimately the NAIA National Championships!

Thinking Like the Committee

This year there are 35 auto-bids into the National Championships. Leaving 29 at-large selections. How are these bids determined?

Auto-Bids

• If a league has 10+ teams, they get two auto-bids.

• Less than 10 teams and that league gets just 1 auto-bid.

• Each League determines how teams get their auto-bids. Every league Tournament Champion gets an auto-bid.

• The two bid leagues generally give the 2nd auto-bid to the regular season champion. If that is the same team (same team wins both tournament and regular season), in MOST cases it is the team who gets the 2-seed. Some cases it is given to the tournament runner-up. We will go more in depth with this when conference tournaments get closer.

At-Large Bids

For at-large bids, the committee uses this guideline

CRITERIA FOR AT-LARGE SELECTION:
The criteria which will be used by the National Selection Committee for both At-Large Selection and
Seeding are as follows. No weight or order is given to the criteria.

Primary Criteria (No Weight or Order)

• Area Rating
• NAIA RPI
• Quadrant Records
• Winning Percentage
  Secondary Criteria (No Weight or Order)
• Conference Record
• Common Opponents
• Head-to-Head Results
• Net Efficiency
• Strength of Schedule
  Additional Information Considered
• Home/Visitor/Neutral
• Record in last 10 game

We use the same criteria points and methodology when trying to develop our own bracket. For more in-depth information on how the committee gets all of their data, you can read it, HERE!

Our Bracket

*Mobile and IU Southeast unfortunately had to forfeit games due to ineligible players.

Seed Lines, Projected Auto-Bids, Opening Round Pods

**Projected Auto-Bids are highlighted by league logo next to their name.

Bubble Watch

Full Bubble Watch Individual team breakdown will be out later today!

** This is current. We will see plenty of shifting around over the next month.

Top Bubble Watch Games (Friday-Friday)

Auto-Bid Watch

We have a couple of teams who are close to locking up auto-bids by winning their conference regular season titles.

Magic Numbers

**Magic Number is the combined number of wins with opponent losses remaining to reach a championship.

3 – Morningside (IA)

5 – Grace (IN), William Carey (MS)

6 -Ave Maria (FL), Freed-Hardeman (TN), Oklahoma Wesleyan, Pikeville (KY)

** This is current. We will see plenty of shifting around over the next month.

The Best part, is that if you can’t make it to Kansas City, the NAIA Men’s Championships is absolutely FREE to watch HERE or by simply downloading the UEN App

Download the UEN App

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Licensed in the State of Iowa

If you are in the market to buy or sell a home in the State of Iowa, the JMR Real Estate Team is the team to help you with your real estate needs! We are happy to support NAIA Men’s Basketball and wish every team the best of luck as you work to reach your goals this season!

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