NCAA Bracketology: From Dead to Very Much Alive

Chalk a bit of it up to bad math here and much, much more of it to a riveting performance in a rivalry game on Tobacco Road.

Duke’s NCAA tournament hopes have been upgraded from dead to alive thanks to the Blue Devils’ 16-12 victory at North Carolina. The ability for a single result, even in late April, to wildly impact the RPI is playing a role, too.

The Blue Devils vaulted from 16th in the RPI to eighth with its triumph in their regular-season finale, placing them firmly in contention for an at-large berth. That’s despite not owning a top-20 victory prior to their trip down US 15-501, as well as their failure to qualify for this week’s ACC tournament in Charlotte, N.C.

That might turn out to be a blessing. Duke can’t do anything to help itself. But it can’t do anything to hurt itself, either. That has some value, since nearly every other team that will end up getting considered for an at-large will end the season with a loss, the ACC tournament champion excepted.

So what sort of impact will standing still have on the Blue Devils’ metrics? Some clues are provided from the two other teams to miss the ACC tournament since the league re-established a four-team postseason format in 2024.

Duke’s RPI is probably in the same ballpark that it will finish in. Using a bit more rigor than a week ago (that declaration that the Blue Devils were “exceedingly unlikely” to be a tournament team even if they beat North Carolina looks quite premature now), it is safe to say Duke is more likely to move down rather than up.

Why? The Blue Devils’ actual RPI value is .62719, slightly further from the team just ahead of them (Cornell at .64331) than it is from the team six spots behind them at 14th (Georgetown at .61097).

Duke is also near-certain to see some strength of schedule slippage, which is intuitive considering how that number is crunched. The NCAA averages the RPI of a team’s 10 best opponents, cycling out lower-ranked foes as the games pile up. Just this past week, Duke replaced No. 47 Providence with No. 2 North Carolina in the calculation.

The Blue Devils won’t have the advantage of subbing out one or two teams out of the Denver/Utah/Air Force/Jacksonville cohort (all ranked between 29th and 33rd) in favor of top-10 ACC opponents. Meanwhile, Yale (replacing No. 37 Dartmouth with No. 3 Princeton) will definitely hop over Duke in this category prior to the weekend, and there’s a decent chance High Point (No. 21 Saint Joseph’s replaces No. 51 Delaware) does, too.

Those aren’t the only teams that can pass Duke in schedule strength, just the most likely ones. Helping the Blue Devils is three of the four teams immediately behind them in that ranking — Rutgers, Ohio State and Dartmouth — are already done. Nonetheless, Duke could end up with the weakest strength of schedule of any at-large contender. (Richmond would be an exception if it doesn’t win the Atlantic 10.)

Add it up, and Duke looks like it will have a more-than-respectable RPI, a strength of schedule figure that doesn’t help it against the teams it will be compared to and one high-end victory. It could use some help; Yale and Harvard losing in the Ivy League semifinals, Richmond claiming the A-10 and Michigan not winning the Big Ten all fall into that category.

All Duke can do now is sit and wait. But darned if it isn’t very much alive and bound to be part of the edge-of-the-field conversation come Sunday night.

The following is based on RPI data available on Monday, April 27.

AUTOMATIC QUALIFIERS  (10)

If Richmond wins the Atlantic 10 tournament, it is all but assured of earning a first-round NCAA tournament home game for the first time. And if it somehow trips up, it’ll land an at-large berth for the first time — with a decent chance of playing at home to open the postseason, anyway. … There is much more risk for Johns Hopkins with Michigan as its Big Ten semifinal opponent than Ohio State. The Blue Jays are probably going to be OK thanks to victories over Virginia and Maryland, but one more triumph would remove any doubt about whether it gets in the field. …

Cornell graduated an all-timer of a class after winning a national championship, and nearly a year later finds itself playing host to the Ivy League tournament yet again. The Big Red got a major separator victory by picking off Harvard over the weekend. … The top of Army’s profile is relatively modest (the Black Knights beat Yale and Loyola), and that loss to Lafayette is a millstone. The Black Knights need two wins in the Patriot League tournament to get back to the postseason after a two-year hiatus. …

It’s AQ-or-bust for Georgetown, the only team in the Big East with a winning overall record. What sort of impact does that have? Well, the Hoyas were 10th in the RPI and third in strength of schedule prior to league play, went 5-0, and dropped in both metrics. … Towson is two victories away from its third consecutive NCAA tournament berth. The Tigers have done that only two other times, in 2003-05 and again from 2015-17. …

UAlbany survived its trip to NJIT to complete an unblemished run through the America East regular season. The Great Danes won’t have much of a strength of schedule boost in the league tournament, getting UMBC (RPI: 50) in the semifinals and either Vermont (49) or Bryant (57) should they advance to the final. … It’s a similar story for Robert Morris, which faces VMI (55) in the NEC semis. The Colonials would get either Long Island (43) or Cleveland State (59) in the title game. …

Jacksonville took the tiebreaker to get the top seed in the Atlantic Sun as it chases its first NCAA berth. The tournament hosts, the Dolphins get a rematch with Mercer (RPI: 46), which they just thumped 17-7 on Saturday. Utah (29) and Air Force (32) meet in Friday’s other semifinal. … No one in the Metro Atlantic is ranked higher than 38th in the RPI. Whether Siena or someone else claims that tournament, the MAAC winner is headed to a play-in game next Wednesday.

AT LARGE  (12 TEAMS/8 SPOTS)

The gap between Notre Dame and No. 2 North Carolina in the actual RPI calculation is larger than the gap between the Tar Heels and No. 7 Cornell. It would be a genuine surprise if the Fighting Irish aren’t the top seed come Sunday night. … North Carolina didn’t get passed by anyone in the RPI after losing to Duke on Saturday; it probably wouldn’t be so fortunate if it lost to Syracuse in the ACC semifinals. …

Princeton is the No. 2 seed in the Ivy tournament, so it gets moved back into the at-large pool. Still, the Tigers have a deep resume (and a head-to-head defeat of North Carolina) that keep it as the projected No. 2 overall seed in the NCAA tournament. … Syracuse has played eight games against the current top 11 teams in the RPI, a number that would jump to 10 if the Orange reach the ACC final. …

Well, there’s Duke, in the clubhouse with a record that won’t get worse and a strength of schedule that won’t get better in the next week. The full list of teams with road victories over top-five teams: The Blue Devils (at North Carolina), Cornell (at Princeton) and Penn State (at Princeton). … Virginia actually gets helped by Duke’s victory in Chapel Hill. The Cavaliers own a pair of top-10 victories: The best win on the board (Notre Dame) and a defeat of the Blue Devils in Durham a week later. …

Maryland would be well-served getting a season split with Penn State. The Terrapins would have better metrics and no noteworthy losses, and that would likely keep them ahead of a Nittany Lions team with better high-end results. … Harvard and Yale have remarkably similar profiles, and Yale owns the head-to-head victory. Both could use an Ivy semifinal victory to bolster their case for a postseason berth. …

No change here: Penn State’s resume is sui generis. It’s hard to know exactly how the committee will evaluate the Nittany Lions, besides the obvious point that a second victory over Maryland would be an immensely helpful differentiator. … A victory over Yale won’t be enough to get Penn in. The Quakers missed the Ivy League tournament, and their season is complete … Because it couldn’t get a second victory over Michigan, Ohio State won’t get a chance to collect the second victory over Johns Hopkins it required to enhance its at-large profile.

BRACKET

A few notes worth remembering …

• First-round conference matchups will be avoided, which can lead to some movement for the unseeded teams.
• The four lowest-ranked automatic qualifying teams will be assigned to play-in games on the Wednesday leading into the first round. The rankings will be determined by the committee and not specifically by the RPI.
• Limiting air travel remains a priority for the NCAA, so this won’t necessarily be a 1-through-18 bracket. Historically, the NCAA tries to bracket the field so only two teams must travel more than 400 miles for a first-round game, though it isn’t a completely inflexible rule.
• Quarterfinal hosts Hofstra and Delaware would be funneled into their home sites if either reaches the NCAA tournament.
• This exercise is an attempt to project what the NCAA committee would do based on its history and on this season’s results to date. It is not an attempt to predict future results or suggest what the committee should do.

Hempstead, N.Y.

(1) Notre Dame vs. ATLANTIC SUN/Jacksonville-NEC/Robert Morris winner ✈️ (possibly)
(8) Virginia vs. Maryland

Hempstead, N.Y.

(5) ATLANTIC 10/Richmond vs. Penn State
(4) Syracuse vs. PATRIOT/Army

Newark, Del.

(3) North Carolina vs. CAA/Towson
(6) IVY/Cornell vs. BIG EAST/Georgetown

Newark, Del.

(7) BIG TEN/Johns Hopkins vs. Duke
(2) Princeton vs. AMERICA EAST/UAlbany-METRO ATLANTIC/Siena winner

Last three included: Maryland, Duke, Penn State
First three on the outside: Yale, Harvard, Ohio State

Moving in: Duke, Jacksonville
Moving out: Harvard, Utah

Conference call: ACC (5), Big Ten (3), Ivy (2)

FIRST-ROUND MILEAGES

* per Google Maps

127: Maryland to Virginia
191: UAlbany to Princeton
192: Siena to Princeton
219: Army to Syracuse
304: Duke to Johns Hopkins
317: Penn State to Richmond
332: Georgetown to Cornell
334: Towson to North Carolina
365: Robert Morris to Notre Dame
1,029: Jacksonville to Notre Dame