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This past Wednesday, we introduced you to the Boston Celtics' (formerly of Butler) Drew Cannon's Easiest Bubble Solver.
The premise is pretty straight forward: Take a team's RPI ranking, add it to their Ken Pomeroy ranking and you have the EBS, a metric that accurately pegs the teams in the NCAAs at about a 94% accuracy rate, just in line with the top bracketologists online.
SB Nation's Chris Dobbertean (one of the best in the business) revealed his latest picks for who's just barely in, who's close but not close enough, and who his next teams after that are earlier this morning. To try and see where man and machine agree and disagree, we crunched the latest EBS numbers and have them below. Remember, as recently as 2012 the EBS missed but one at-large team, and last year it only missed two.
Safely in
Team | RPI | KenPom | EBS |
Arizona | 1 | 1 | 2 |
Florida | 2 | 3 | 5 |
Wichita St. | 4 | 4 | 8 |
Kansas | 3 | 9 | 12 |
Creighton | 7 | 6 | 13 |
Villanova | 6 | 7 | 13 |
Wisconsin | 5 | 10 | 15 |
Duke | 8 | 8 | 16 |
Virginia | 11 | 5 | 16 |
Michigan | 10 | 11 | 21 |
Louisville | 23 | 2 | 25 |
VCU | 13 | 13 | 26 |
San Diego St. | 12 | 16 | 28 |
Syracuse | 14 | 14 | 28 |
Iowa St. | 9 | 24 | 33 |
Gonzaga | 17 | 20 | 37 |
Ohio St. | 21 | 17 | 38 |
UCLA | 19 | 19 | 38 |
Michigan St. | 24 | 15 | 39 |
Kentucky | 18 | 22 | 40 |
Cincinnati | 16 | 25 | 41 |
Connecticut | 20 | 23 | 43 |
New Mexico | 15 | 31 | 46 |
North Carolina | 25 | 26 | 51 |
Tennessee | 41 | 12 | 53 |
Oklahoma | 27 | 29 | 56 |
Pittsburgh | 38 | 18 | 56 |
Baylor | 30 | 28 | 58 |
Oregon | 29 | 30 | 59 |
Saint Louis | 26 | 35 | 61 |
George Washington | 28 | 37 | 65 |
Oklahoma St. | 44 | 21 | 65 |
Massachusetts | 22 | 51 | 73 |
Texas | 36 | 40 | 76 |
Harvard | 45 | 33 | 78 |
Stanford | 40 | 38 | 78 |
BYU | 31 | 49 | 80 |
Iowa | 54 | 27 | 81 |
Memphis | 37 | 46 | 83 |
SMU | 53 | 32 | 85 |
Arizona St. | 42 | 45 | 87 |
North Dakota St. | 34 | 54 | 88 |
Xavier | 46 | 42 | 88 |
Louisiana Tech | 56 | 34 | 90 |
Colorado | 32 | 62 | 94 |
Kansas St. | 51 | 43 | 94 |
Nebraska | 47 | 47 | 94 |
Southern Miss | 33 | 61 | 94 |
Next in line
Team | RPI | KenPom | EBS |
Last Four In | |||
Dayton | 43 | 52 | 95 |
Florida St. | 55 | 41 | 96 |
Providence | 48 | 48 | 96 |
Saint Joseph's | 39 | 58 | 97 |
First Four Out | |||
Minnesota | 49 | 56 | 105 |
St. John's | 67 | 39 | 106 |
Utah | 78 | 36 | 114 |
Green Bay | 58 | 59 | 117 |
Next Four Out | |||
Maryland | 73 | 44 | 117 |
North Carolina St. | 52 | 66 | 118 |
Georgetown | 69 | 53 | 122 |
Illinois | 68 | 55 | 123 |
So what do we take away from the findings?
The EBS likes Nebraska a lot more than Dobbertean (though the EBS is far more accurate at in/out versus seeding), who sees Nebraska's collapse against the Buckeyes yesterday as more damning than the computers. Our formula is also more comfortable with SMU and BYU than Chris with his years of experience is.
The Cougars are an interesting litmus test. The committee says they don't use injuries to justify of teams but rather only seeding, but it's awfully hard (even subconsciously) to not factor in the loss of guard Kyle Collinsworth, who suffered a torn ACL in the Cougars' WCC Championship Game loss to Gonzaga. That said, both Dobbertean and the EBS are comfortable with BYU as being in the tournament.
The biggest disagreement between the two comes in the form of the Florida State Seminoles. The 'Noles have three Top 50 wins to go with nine losses against that caliber of team. The EBS, at least as of today, says they're in, while Dobbertean says they're amongst the first four out. FSU's (relatively) high KenPom ranking probably has a good deal to do with the former.
So what do you think? Are BYU and Dayton in? Is Nebraska on thin ice or can Tim Miles and company rest on the laurels of their season ending victory over Wisconsin?