New Jersey bracketology, Part III: Two weeks and a world of change
How will the selection committee account for Kadary Richmond's two-game absence if Seton Hall is on the bubble?
I’m enjoying my decision to introduce bracketology coverage this season and update it in two-week increments. Some of my favorite reading all year is Eamonn Brennan’s Bubble Watch, most recently for The Athletic and now here on Substack. He writes thousands of words weekly from January through March; I don’t have that kind of stamina (yet), and I’m limiting my scope to just a handful of programs in New Jersey, after all.
Checking the temperature of the tournament chase every two weeks works because enough can happen in that window to interrupt or outright change the trajectory of a team’s season, even to alter the goals it is chasing down the stretch. Two weeks ago, Princeton was still the only one-loss team in Division I men’s basketball, and we didn’t know Kadary Richmond would sit out a few games for Seton Hall. Two weeks ago, Rutgers still had the hope of beating Purdue at home (or even Penn State! OK, OK).
Let’s see how everyone’s looking on Feb. 6. (Spoiler: It’s a bit less rosy than last time.) Shout-out, again, to WarrenNolan.com for the meticulously updated and perfectly organized team sheets for us to ponder.
Seton Hall
NET: 66; KenPom: 60; strength of record: 49
Quad 1: 4-4; Quad 2: 1-3; Quad 3: 2-1; Quad 4: 7-0
The selection committee is made up of human beings. Don’t get me wrong, they have a job to do each year, and they had better be paying attention to the sport as closely as many hardcore fans do. They should be carrying notebooks at all times to jot things down, lest they forget that, e.g., Dayton has no bad losses and a top-10 non-conference strength of schedule and a player named Enoch Cheeks.
But they’re human, and I occasionally wonder whether they can fully keep track of all the injury-related absences in this sport and how they affected a team. On Selection Sunday, if Seton Hall is on the bubble, will the committee take into account that Seton Hall went 0-2 without Richmond, currently a frontrunner for Big East Player of the Year? He came back, and things were immediately better, or so we say for this thought exercise.
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