March Badness 2024, Top 16 Reveal

The seed reveal everyone's been waiting for!

Today was the Selection Committee’s annual reveal of the top 16 seeds if the NCAA Tournament started today. They’ve done this every mid-February since 2017 to help the basketball-watching public understand what factors they value the most in putting together the 68-team bracket.

It’d probably be more interesting to know which teams are on the right and wrong sides of the bubble, but that’s too much work and sets the Committee up for a whole bunch of extra criticism. Instead, we can just fight over which team really deserved the last 1-seed and which probable 5-seeds should actually be 4-seeds.

Unexciting as that may be, it’s become a staple of the college basketball calendar, so I figured I’d offer our version of it.

Longtime readers are no doubt familiar with March Badness, the bracket we’ve released for the past two seasons highlighting the very worst teams, metrics, and résumés in the country. In honor of the NCAA’s seed reveal, I thought it’d be fun to also reveal the top 16 March Badness seeds to celebrate the country’s biggest underdogs.

We are The Low Major, after all.

Before I get into the seed list, we have to explain away a few ineligible teams.

Ineligible teams

As with the NCAA Tournament, every team still transitioning from a lower division is ineligible for March Badness. We all believe as much as anyone that St. Thomas should be eligible for the Big Dance this year, but they’re not, so it seems a little cruel to put them on the same playing field as everyone else. This eliminated the following teams who were otherwise in contention for one of the top 16 seeds:

• Stonehill (definitely would have been in)

• Lindenwood (definitely would have been in)

• Southern Indiana (probably wouldn’t have been in)

• Texas A&M–Commerce (probably wouldn’t have been in)

Next, I removed every team with a winning record in conference play. No matter how bad your fellow leaguemates are, if you’re beating them more than you’re not, you’ve proven you’re not one of the very worst teams in the country. This only eliminated one team:

• Morgan State (4-3 MEAC; probably wouldn’t have been in)

In the full bracket reveal, we also eliminate any team that made it to their conference tournament championship game and disallow more than half of any given conference from being in the field, but because it’s still February and this is just a top-16 reveal, we don’t have that information yet.

Let’s talk about the information we do have.

What I looked at

I considered the following metrics.

• KenPom: For each team, I looked at both their KenPom ranking (out of 362 Division I teams) and their Adjusted Efficiency Margin (AdjEM).

• WAB: Wins Above Bubble, a metric from Bart Torvik meant to simulate how humans view the quality of every win and loss. Each win is worth a maximum of 1 WAB and each loss is worth a minimum of -1 WAB. The bubble is supposed to be right around 0 WAB total. Non-Division I games are excluded from this metric.

• WAB/gm: Because it’s midseason and some teams have played significantly different amounts of games, a counting stat like WAB is going to have major discrepancies, so I also considered each team’s average WAB per Division I game.

• NET: The NCAA Evaluation Tool used to sort teams into quadrants

• Quadrant records: The NET sorts results into quadrants based on the opponent’s spot in the ranking and the location of the game. Quadrant 1 consists of the hardest games and Quadrant 4 consists of the easiest. Under normal circumstances, you want to rack up higher quadrant wins and avoid lower quadrant losses. On this bracket, the opposite is true. For an example, and to show where the cutoffs for each quadrant are, here’s Minnesota’s ledger:

• Non-D1 record: Losing a game to an opponent who isn’t even in Division I will make your résumé look significantly worse and likely raise you at least one seed line on this bracket.

Keep in mind that all of these metrics are current through Friday, February 16. Some games on Saturday will have been completed before I publish this, so the live numbers will certainly look slightly different as you’re reading this.

Without further ado, let’s get into the top 16.

The Top 16

Each seed line should be read from left to right.

1-seeds

1. MISSISSIPPI VALLEY STATE Delta Devils

   • 0-24 (0-11 SWAC)

   • #362 KenPom (-33.40 AdjEM)

   • -16.8 WAB (-0.70 per game)

   • #362 NET

   • Quad records: 0-7 / 0-3 / 0-3 / 0-11

   • 0-0 outside Division I

It’s impossible to argue that the #1 overall seed should belong to anyone but Mississippi Valley State. The Delta Devils are the nation’s only remaining winless team and are last in KenPom AdjEM by 7.72 points. In the SWAC, the country’s second worst conference per KenPom, MVSU has lost six of their 11 games by double digits.

Next Sunday, February 25, will mark one full year since the Delta Devils’ last victory. They’ll have three chances to break their losing streak between now and then. They’re heavy underdogs in all of them.

2. DETROIT MERCY Titans

   • 1-26 (1-15 Horizon)

   • #356 KenPom (-21.85 AdjEM)

   • -20.6 WAB (-0.76 per game)

   • #359 NET

   • Quad records: 0-3 / 0-2 / 0-9 / 1-12

   • 0-0 outside Division I

Until this Wednesday, Detroit Mercy was also winless, but their metrics suggested they should have been at least a little more competitive. In November, they nearly upset Ole Miss (an actual NCAA Tournament hopeful) on the road, losing by just one point. A couple months later, they took Robert Morris to double overtime, also on the road, eventually falling by three points.

On Wednesday, they faced 2-seed IUPUI at home and Vegas favored them by 5.5 points despite their being winless. They proved Vegas right and won by 15. One man stormed the court.

3. COPPIN STATE Eagles

   • 2-19 (1-6 MEAC)

   • #360 KenPom (-24.59 AdjEM)

   • -15.2 WAB (-0.72 per game)

   • #360 NET

   • Quad records: 0-3 / 0-0 / 0-7 / 2-9

   • 0-0 outside Division I

In researching this bracket, I found that the MEAC’s conference schedule includes a 12-day gap from last Monday, February 5, to today. I knew the league was reduced to eight teams, making a double round robin require just 14 games. I did not know they chose to handle the shortened schedule in such a stark manner.

Some teams scheduled non-conference or non-D1 games in the interim but Coppin State wasn’t one of them. They haven’t played since February 5 and are currently on a five-game losing streak. Their two wins on the season have come vs. UMBC and 4-seed Maryland Eastern Shore—both at home, the latter requiring overtime.

4. VMI Keydets

   • 4-22 (1-12 SoCon)

   • #349 KenPom (-19.76 AdjEM)

   • -17.3 WAB (-0.75 per game)

   • #352 NET

   • Quad records: 0-2 / 0-4 / 0-7 / 1-9

   • 3-0 outside Division I

Mississippi Valley State, Detroit Mercy, and Coppin State are three obvious 1-seeds on this bracket. The fourth and final 1-seed is up for some debate. You probably expected it to be IUPUI on metrics alone, but VMI’s résumé is so, so bad that they ended up here through sheer force of will.

First and foremost, IUPUI has three Division I wins. VMI has just one in 23 tries, at home against The Citadel on January 20. Their other 22 games have sent them plummeting toward the bottom of the WAB charts as their Q3 and Q4 loss totals continue to climb. According to WAB, their average result is worse than Coppin State and even Mississippi Valley State.

2-seeds

5. IUPUI Jaguars

   • 6-21 (2-14 Horizon)

   • #361 KenPom (-25.68 AdjEM)

   • -17.3 WAB (-0.72 per game)

   • #361 NET

   • Quad records: 0-1 / 0-2 / 1-5 / 2-13

   • 3-0 outside Division I

IUPUI’s metrics are significantly worse than anyone else on the 2-line, but they belong here on résumé despite the loss at Detroit Mercy. Not only do they have those three D1 wins I mentioned earlier, but two of them are on the road and one of them (at Purdue Fort Wayne) is even firmly in Quad 3.

6. SIENA Saints

   • 4-21 (3-11 MAAC)

   • #359 KenPom (-22.76 AdjEM)

   • -17.1 WAB (-0.68 per game)

   • #356 NET

   • Quad records: 0-1 / 0-2 / 1-6 / 3-12

   • 0-0 outside Division I

Siena’s team profile is strikingly similar to IUPUI’s: two road wins, one of which is in Quad 3, with a lot of really bad losses to really bad teams tanking their metrics and putting them among the very worst teams in the country.

They find themselves behind IUPUI almost entirely because IUPUI’s metrics are way worse.

7. HAMPTON Pirates

   • 5-21 (0-13 CAA)

   • #351 KenPom (-20.40 AdjEM)

   • -17.7 WAB (-0.77 per game)

   • #353 NET

   • Quad records: 0-0 / 0-2 / 0-10 / 2-9

   • 3-0 outside Division I

Hampton’s -0.77 WAB per Division I game is the lowest mark in the entire country. The primary reason for this is the sheer lack of games against quality opponents, as they’ve played zero opponents in Quad 1 and just two in Quad 2.

You could argue that this should put them in contention for a 1-seed, but the field is just too stacked and their metrics aren’t quite bad enough. Weirdly enough, both of Hampton’s D1 wins have come on neutral courts.

8. FLORIDA A&M Rattlers

   • 4-18 (2-9 SWAC)

   • #345 KenPom (-19.12 AdjEM)

   • -12.4 WAB (-0.62 per game)

   • #345 NET

   • Quad records: 0-6 / 0-2 / 0-0 / 3-9

   • 1-1 outside Division I

Florida A&M finds themselves on the 2-line for one reason: a double-overtime home loss to Division II Albany State. It’s the only non-D1 loss by any of these top 16 teams. So despite their metrics being more in line with the 3-seeds and the rest of their résumé not really being that bad, they get a major boost ahead of some teams who are probably worse than them.

3-seeds

9. BUFFALO Bulls

   • 3-21 (1-10 MAC)

   • #346 KenPom (-19.37 AdjEM)

   • -16.4 WAB (-0.71 per game)

   • #347 NET

   • Quad records: 0-2 / 0-4 / 0-6 / 2-9

   • 1-0 outside Division I

When you think of bad MAC teams, your mind probably first turns to the directional Michigan schools, but Buffalo has unexpectedly been far worse than all of them this year. The metrics are horrible and the résumé is up there with the worst of the worst.

10. LOYOLA (MD) Greyhounds

    • 6-20 (4-9 Patriot)

    • #344 KenPom (-18.89 AdjEM)

    • -16.2 WAB (-0.65 per game)

    • #343 NET

    • Quad records: 0-1 / 0-3 / 0-4 / 5-12

    • 1-0 outside Division I

The Greyhounds are such a weird case. They have five D1 wins and all of them are Quad 4 despite all of them being on the road. They’ve taken a lot of huge home losses to really bad teams, Patriot League and otherwise, and it’s destroyed their metrics beyond repair.

11. CAL POLY Mustangs

    • 4-22 (0-14 Big West)

    • #339 KenPom (-17.44 AdjEM)

    • -18.0 WAB (-0.72 per game)

    • #341 NET

    • Quad records: 0-0 / 0-1 / 1-12 / 2-9

    • 1-0 outside Division I

Cal Poly is the highest team within the top 16 on both KenPom and NET, even landing ahead of several teams who missed this list, but their résumé gets them in here easily. Their -0.72 WAB per D1 game is 1-seed material, and they’ve only won three D1 games despite only playing one game outside of the lower two quadrants all year. Very few teams have lost to bad teams at as high a volume as Cal Poly has this year.

On a broader scale, this isn’t something I considered in seeding, but Cal Poly currently owns the longest road losing streak in the country, their last such win coming at Pacific on November 28, 2022. They also don’t have a regular season Big West win since defeating CSUN on December 29, 2022, though they did upset Long Beach State in the 2023 Big West Tournament.

12. SOUTHEAST MISSOURI Redhawks

    • 8-18 (3-10 OVC)

    • #353 KenPom (-20.89 AdjEM)

    • -14.7 WAB (-0.67 per game)

    • #349 NET

    • Quad records: 0-2 / 0-1 / 0-7 / 4-8

    • 4-0 outside Division I

Southeast Missouri’s record looks inflated because non-D1 opponents account for half of their wins. The four Division I wins they have are all at home against bottom-100 teams, and their metrics show it.

4-seeds

13. LIU Sharks

    • 6-18 (5-7 NEC)

    • #347 KenPom (-19.61 AdjEM)

    • -14.5 WAB (-0.60 per game)

    • #348 NET

    • Quad records: 0-1 / 0-2 / 1-4 / 5-11

    • 0-0 outside Division I

Two of LIU’s six D1 wins have come against ineligible Stonehill. Another was at home against Saint Francis, who just missed this top 16.

14. HOLY CROSS Crusaders

    • 8-18 (5-8 Patriot)

    • #354 KenPom (-21.07 AdjEM)

    • -14.7 WAB (-0.59 per game)

    • #351 NET

    • Quad records: 0-1 / 0-2 / 1-4 / 6-11

    • 1-0 outside Division I

Holy Cross lands here despite beating Georgetown on the road in November. This is an indictment on Georgetown more than it is an accomplishment for Holy Cross.

15. HOUSTON CHRISTIAN Huskies

    • 6-17 (4-8 Southland)

    • #355 KenPom (-21.44 AdjEM)

    • -11.7 WAB (-0.56 per game)

    • #355 NET

    • Quad records: 0-5 / 0-1 / 0-3 / 4-8

    • 2-0 outside Division I

Houston Christian’s résumé numbers look relatively pedestrian on account of playing five Quad 1 games, but their metrics are firmly among the bottom 10 teams in the country.

16. MARYLAND EASTERN SHORE Hawks

    • 7-14 (2-5 MEAC)

    • #350 KenPom (-19.78 AdjEM)

    • -10.9 WAB (-0.64 per game)

    • #350 NET

    • Quad records: 0-1 / 0-2 / 0-4 / 3-7

    • 4-0 outside Division I

When more than half of your wins have come from outside Division I, you probably deserve to be here.

---

Stay tuned for the full March Badness bracket reveal, which will come at some point in the week after Selection Sunday!