Bracket Watch: Let’s play the blind résumé game

Welcome to our third edition of Bracket Watch. Let’s play America’s favorite game, the blind résumé test! Would you put a team with the following profile, as of Thursday, in the NCAA Tournament?

Record: 12-5
NET: 68
Nonconference SOS: 156
Quad 1 record: 0-3
Quad 2 record: 3-0
Quad 3 record: 4-3
Quad 4 record: 4-0
Best NET win: vs. No. 34, at home
Worst NET loss: at No. 165

Not much meat on that bone, right? Well, you’ve probably figured out by now that résumé belongs to the reigning national champion, Virginia. The Cavaliers were in our field last week, but after a home loss to Syracuse last Saturday and a missed opportunity in a close game at Florida State on Wednesday night, the champs just haven’t done enough yet to deserve a spot.

A team winning the title and then missing the tournament altogether the next season is hardly a rare occurrence. It has happened several times this century, in fact, including UConn (in 2015), Kentucky (2013), North Carolina (2010) and Florida (2008). Still, we find it strange not to include Tony Bennett’s team. There’s a lot of season left, but with the ACC being down — and with Virginia having all kinds of trouble putting the ball in the basket — the Hoos face an uphill climb.

OK, let’s do one more:

Record: 12-4
NET: 35
Nonconference SOS: 140
Quad 1 record: 3-1
Quad 2 record: 2-2
Quad 3 record: 1-0
Quad 4 record: 6-1
Best NET wins: vs. No. 10 on a neutral floor, vs. No. 14 at home
Worst NET losses: vs. No. 249, at No. 109

That team is all over the map, right? You don’t have to be “Knives Out” master detective Benoit Blanc to unmask it as Kentucky, owner of the nation’s weirdest team sheet. The Wildcats have beaten Michigan State and Louisville but incurred bad defeats from Evansville, Utah and, on Wednesday night, a South Carolina team that itself is a few weeks removed from losing at home to Stetson.

I had UK as a No. 6 seed last week, which ruffled a few feathers with Big Blue Nation. I thought about bumping the Cats up after a decent Quad 2 win over Alabama on Saturday. But the disaster in Columbia means they remain on the No. 6 line, despite a No. 10 ranking by AP. You could argue even that is somewhat generous. John Calipari will have a hard time complaining this Selection Sunday, for his team will have only itself to blame for its seeding.

Other notes about our bracket, 58 days before Selection Sunday:

• Baylor moves up to the No. 1 overall seed, which shouldn’t be surprising. The Bears, who won at Kansas on Saturday, have the most unimpeachable résumé in the country. It includes wins over a pair of No. 1 seeds (Butler and those Jayhawks), a No. 4 seed (Villanova) and a No. 6 seed (Arizona) in our field.

• Yes, the No. 1 team in the polls — Gonzaga — remains on our 2-seed line. This caused a bit of a stir last week, so let’s explain a little more. The Zags woke up Thursday morning at No. 5 in NET but with the No. 303 nonconference strength of schedule. They have four wins in Quad 1 and Quad 2 combined; by that same measurement, Butler has nine wins, Kansas has eight, while Baylor and Duke own six. In the other metrics that appear on the selection committee’s team sheet, Gonzaga went into Thursday night’s game against Santa Clara ranked No. 23 (!) in KPI, No. 3 in Sagarin, No. 4 in ESPN’s BPI (sixth in BPI’s strength-of-record metric) and No. 8 in KenPom.

Those numbers look more like a No. 2 seed’s profile than a No. 1, in my eyes. Speaking of eyeballs, though, if you (or a selection committee member) wanted to make the case that the Zags are one of the four best teams in the country based on watching them play, well, that would be a reasonable enough argument. They scheduled aggressively as always and shouldn’t be blamed for North Carolina going into the tank.

The best news for the Bulldogs is that the West Coast Conference is stronger than in recent years, so they will get more opportunities for Quad 1 and 2 wins, including Saturday at home against BYU. I suspect they will end up on the No. 1 line before it’s all said and done and possibly within the next couple of weeks. But this bracket is based on results to date, not a projection.

• The totally bonkers, bananas Big Ten has 12 of its 14 teams in our field this week. The record for most bids by one conference is 11, set by the Big East in 2011. The Big East, you’ll recall, had 16 teams that season. Getting 12 of 14 teams in would also represent the highest percentage of teams a conference has ever had in the bracket.

Purdue and Minnesota were the first two teams out last week, but thanks to the Boilermakers’ trouncing of Michigan State on Sunday and back-to-back quality wins by the Gophers (Michigan and Penn State), both enter the fold despite 10-7 records.

Having 12 teams from the same league makes for some tricky bracketing. Teams from the same conference are not supposed to meet in the tournament until the Sweet 16 if they played two times in the regular season and not before the Elite Eight if they played three times (including the conference tournament). Because so many of the Big Ten clubs were in the 7 to 10 range on my initial seed list, I had to bump Indiana and Minnesota to the 11 line. The committee may find itself twisted into similar pretzels.

• Are you a bracketology nut? Of course you are, if you’ve read this far. Well, here’s some good news. The Athletic has started a new podcast devoted to talking about the brackets. It’s called Bracket Madness, and it’s hosted by yours truly and Michael Beller. The first episode will drop Friday morning and new episodes will arrive every week until we get closer to March, when that frequency will increase. Give it a listen and subscribe, if you’re so inclined.

• This edition pits the South vs. the West and the Midwest vs. the East in the national semifinals, based on the order of my No. 1 seeds. An asterisk denotes a projected conference automatic bid qualifier.

South Region (Houston)

West Region (Los Angeles)

Midwest Region (Indianapolis)

East Region (New York City)

Bids by conference

(Photo of Baylor: Raymond Carlin III/USA Today Sports)