For those of you new here, Week 1 will give you a full breakdown of what we’re doing.

It’s been over a month now of tracking the top teams in the country, and with even more data backing up where every team is falling I thought week 5 would be a great chance to highlight the big movers as well as the teams who have solidified who they are. The biggest takeaway looking at week 1 to now has to be Virginia, who has moved all the way from Matador territory to borderline great at this point. They have vastly improved defensively while maintaining their strength on the other side, so huge shoutout to Ryan Odom in year one there. Shoutout also to Nebraska fans as their long awaited arrival into a reliable archetype has finally arrived. Still undefeated, the Cornhuskers have finally wedged themselves into hopefully a place that will quiet some of the calls for more respect. The early season close calls with USC Upstate and Winthrop are probably still holding them back, but they are surging and have at least established themselves as a reliable defensive team that can score enough to count on them.

On the flip side there are teams like Michigan St, Alabama, Arkansas and Texas Tech who are top 4-5 seeds right now who do not look to be trustworthy due to various inadequacies. That’s the ultimate goal of what we’re trying to do here, identify the risky bets when March rolls around, and identify who are the most trustworthy. The latter group is led by Michigan, who remains alive in our continued Juggernaut Watch, as they remain just above that threshold that has seen just 5 teams on the Jug side enter the tournament, all reaching at least the Final 4. The loss to Wisconsin showed they are human, but they acquitted themselves well in the bounce back spot and remain the leader in the clubhouse. Arizona is the other team holding strong though, as we’ve fallen from a year high of 6 Elite teams to just 3, with Vandy, Duke and Iowa St all suffering setbacks. I point this out to show just how difficult it is for these top teams to hold the kind of consistency required to enter March Madness as Elite. Which is why there have been seasons with 0 in there as recent as 2023. So, while there are some out there who would argue for Michigan St over Gonzaga, the analytical profiles suggest Gonzaga has a better chance of reaching the title game than Sparty does getting out of the first weekend (side note the numbers don’t take into account Braden Huff’s injury, we’ll see how they fare without him in the coming weeks.)

Would love to hear any questions you have on methodology or the history of all of this and I can address those next week. Until then, enjoy the hoops.