Originally posted on Monday, April 12, 2004.
Ok, this is what you can consider way late in terms of posting. But in retrospect, this could give me a good chance to really analyze what happened with the bracketing and the tournament, so here goes.

As usual, the MRI was quite close in its prediction of the at large bids, however, it was not as good this year as it was last year. The cutoff according to the MRI should have been a rank of 49. This means that a team with an MRI rank of 49 or higher should have been expected to make the tournament. This year, we missed 6 teams. The teams that the MRI predicted to go to the tournament and that didn't were Utah State, Florida State, Troy State, Boston University, Wichita State, and Nebraska. Of these teams, everyone was selected for the NIT tournament. The 6 teams that the MRI did not pick were Richmond, Michigan State, Washington, DePaul, Dayton, and Air Force. As in years past, the outlook for those teams going into the tournament should not have been very bright. In previous years, those teams which the MRI did not select to the tournament failed to get to the Sweet 16 in every case but one. Those teams even making the second round were rare as many of them came as the result of facing one of the other non-selected teams in the first round. This year played out no different. The committee stuck me with another match-up of two non-selected teams which necessitated one of the teams winning. This year, the lucky winner was Depaul, in what was probably the sloppiest first round game of the tournament. Anyone watching the first round match-up between Depaul and Dayton could see that they did not deserve to be in the tournament, even facing each other. Depaul, true to form, lost the second round game to the eventual champion Connecticut. Usually the teams which I pick to make the tournament, and do not actually make it, fair pretty well in the NIT. This year was a little exception to that rule. The furthest advancement was by Florida State which lost late in the tournament to Iowa State. Michigan, which was an MRI pick until the last week of the season, breezed through almost every game it played in the NIT to a big win for their program. With a team that performed as well as it did this year, combined with the fact that almost all their main players will be returning, it looks like Michigan may soon become a force in the Big Ten once again.

The MRI was correct in its prediction of 3 of the 4 Final Four teams, but its one miss was a big one as the team from that bracket, Georgia Tech ended up going to the final, a prediction that was made from Gonzaga in that region. For the final game, the MRI made the prediction of Duke to prevail before the tournament in a straight up analysis. Running the MRI through a simulation proved to make Connecticut the champion based on the starting conditions and the selection criteria. So, the MRI was half right this year in its choice.

One new record this year. Arkansas-Pine Bluff regains its mark as the worst team ever with a new low water mark of -168.27, beating Savannah State mark of -140.24 back in the 2001-2002 season. Arkansas-Pine Bluff was the worst team in 14 of the 15 weeks that the MRI reported standings this year.

And Now the Rankings

RANK
TEAM
RECORD
MRI
LW
1
Duke
27-5
200.16
1
2
Connecticut
27-6
190.10
2
3
Gonzaga
27-2
177.81
3
4
Cincinnati
24-6
176.31
4
5
Pittsburgh
28-4
164.86
5
6
Oklahoma State
26-3
163.28
8
7
Wisconsin
23-6
156.06
10
8
Kentucky
26-4
154.87
13
9
St. Joseph's
27-1
152.52
6
10
Stanford
29-1
149.23
12
11
Mississippi State
25-3
148.76
7
12
Texas
23-7
147.48
9
13
Western Michigan
26-4
146.66
15
14
Louisville
20-9
142.71
11
15
Georgia Tech
23-9
136.57
14
16
Nevada
22-8
135.25
17
17
Vanderbilt
21-9
126.41
19
18
Illinois
24-6
125.22
18
19
North Carolina
18-10
125.19
16
20
Xavier
23-10
121.46
NR(42)
21
Murray State
25-5
120.95
21
22
Arizona
20-9
118.99
20
23
Utah State
24-3
115.74
25
24
North Carolina State
20-9
115.42
NR(26)
25
Seton Hall
19-9
115.31
22

Teams Dropped From The Top 25:
Wake Forest (LW #23, TW #26), Memphis (LW #24, TW #30)

Other Teams People Might Care About

RANK
TEAM
RECORD
MRI
LW
27
Florida
20-10
114.17
31
28
Texas Tech
22-10
113.07
28
29
Kansas
20-8
113.04
32
37
Maryland
19-11
102.76
38
46
Florida State
17-13
90.72
41
53
Michigan
18-11
87.04
52
54
Michigan State
18-11
85.12
60
59
Dayton
24-8
83.09
62
80
Pennsylvania
17-10
69.66
77
81
Purdue
17-13
68.92
74
85
Notre Dame
17-12
66.13
83
90
Drexel
18-10
63.99
91
96
Iowa
16-12
61.50
90
133
Miami
13-16
39.61
135
149
Indiana
14-15
33.47
155
153
Ball State
13-15
32.21
156
199
UCLA
11-17
13.95
192
302
Wofford
6-20
-52.01
302

Last Place this week:  Arkansas-Pine Bluff (1-26) at -168.27. 14th Week in a row.

Biggest Gain this week: Xavier gained 28.64 points (Beat St. Bonaventure, St. Joseph's, George Washington, and Dayton)
Biggest Loss this week: Sam Houston lost 7.99 points (Lost to Stephen Austin)

Conference rankings this week:  ACC, SEC, Big 12, Big East, C-USA, Big Ten, Mountain West, Pac 10, WAC, Atlantic 10, MVC, WCC

Enjoy
Return to 2003-2004 ArchiveReturn to MRISports.com
Copyright 2004 MRISports.com