The NCAA announced this week that they would use the S-curve when moving teams from the seed list to the bracket. I discussed this format several weeks ago and agreed that this would be the best way to set up the bracket since there will be no regional sites or pods this season. And while the S-curve will be followed in most situations, there will still be times where adjustments need to be made because of bracket procedures set down by the NCAA.

At various points throughout the season, I conduct what I like to call a deep scrub of the bracket. Heading into this week, I concentrated on the bottom half of the bracket from the eight-seed line down. The scrub consists of entering all metrics that are taken into consideration by the committee, and the teams are then grouped in fours as I evaluate the metrics. Records are adjusted considering how many games teams have played against lower-level competition (games against the bottom 20 percent of programs). All factors are then considered, and these teams are ranked. Then before adding teams to the seed list a scrub is done in which ranked teams are compared against each other. The schools are then added to the seed list and bracketed accordingly.

This process usually happens in groups of four seed lines. Because of the variance in games played in this COVID-19 season, I expanded the group to include eight lines and bubble teams. That’s why some teams may move down a line even though they might have had impressive results last week. Look at this scrub as a slight adjustment that will allow us to rate teams more accurately going forward.

This season, I’m very excited about the new Bracketology by TKBrackets podcast. On each episode we will take a look at the most recent bracket and highlight teams that have made moves. We will also have guests on like the top bracketologists in the country, NCAA staff members who help put the official bracket together, former selection committee members and the biggest names in college basketball.

Check out the latest podcast and get caught up on all the past episodes right here at Buzzsprout or anywhere you go to listen to podcasts.

LAST FOUR IN:  Oklahoma, Indiana, VCU, Utah State
FIRST FOUR OUT:  Maryland, Colorado State, Michigan State, Marquette
NEXT FOUR OUT:  Arkansas, SMU, Syracuse, Duke

CONFERENCES WITH MULTIPLE BIDS
Big Ten: 9
ACC: 7
Big 12: 7
SEC: 5
Big East: 5
Pac-12: 4
A-10: 4
MW: 3
WCC: 2