Syracuse loses to Boston College (at home)! No, you weren't dreaming... it really happened. Plus, we cover bubble teams like Providence, St. Johns, Richmond, and Marquette. And, could Creighton and Wichita BOTH end up as 1 seeds? Listen to the latest podcast to find out! Don't forget to leave feedback!

Check out the latest podcast with a focus on University of Virginia basketball (UVA) and looking ahead.

     What happened this weekend? Is there anyone out there who can claim that this wasn't the most upside down week in college basketball over the past decade? After all, every top five team lost during the week, the first time that has happened since 1992. There is no question that the top of college basketball is down compared to most years, but what's creating a lot of upsets is that there are very strong teams outside the top 30 that can beat the teams in the top tier. Here are some notes on how the past week affected Monday's new bracket.

1. Despite Michigan's recent losses, their wins have been impressive along with their style of play. I'm totally comfortable keeping them on the 1 line. 
   
2. I wrote in January about how the time may come for Gonzaga to get strong consideration for a 1 seed. Well, the time has come. Every team above them has lost (sometimes more than once) while the Zags have continued to win impressively. With their brutal "play anyone-anywhere" motto, they went 5-0 vs the Big 12 and racked up other big non-conference wins. Gonzaga has earned a spot on the top line after Arizona's loss to Cal. The Zags move to the 1 seed in the West Region, while Arizona moves to the 2 seed in the West.
   
3. Speaking of beating Michigan, the Badger wins against the Wolverines shot them up several seed lines. Even though they lack quality out of conference wins, Wisconsin's Big Ten wins give them an extremely impressive resume. They've earned a 5 seed to this point.
4. I said I wouldn't include or consider Illinois for the bracket unless they could beat Minnesota and get to three games within .500 in Big Ten play. They did just that, knocking off two very highly regarded teams in a row. They jump all the way up to a 9 seed and certainly deserve it.
5. After moving Illinois in, someone had to go, and that team was Arizona State. The home loss to Stanford was a huge blow, but the Sun Devils have enough wins to date that they can earn their back in the field by beating teams they're supposed to beat through early March.
6. The tailspin virus has spread fast at the top of the Missouri Valley, first to Wichita State and then to Creighton. Both teams have managed to fall on very difficult times of late. They're both ok for at-larges as of now, but they need to be careful. More than one additional bad loss could take them out of the at-large field. 
7. Kansas falls from a 1 to a 3 seed within a week after three straight losses. Mean while, cross-state rival Kansas State continued to look impressive since their first loss to the Jayhawks earlier in the New Year. Make no mistake about it, Kansas MUST win this game if it wants to get back in consideration for a top seed and a Big 12 regular season title. I would even go so far to say that this is their biggest regular season game in years. The Wildcats, on the other hand can take control of the Big 12 with a win in Lawrence. A victory on Monday would put them easily in the conversation for a 2 seed. 
8. Even though Memphis and Belmont play in typical one-bid leagues and have relatively weak resumes, their play in conference has been quite impressive, going a combined 20-1. If they can avoid bad (read: any) regular season losses, they have a solid shot at an at-large if they don't win their conference tournament.  
9. Fastest risers this week: Oklahoma State, Wisconsin, Illinois, Miami
10. Quickest drops this week: Wichita State, Creighton, Ole Miss, Kansas

     The first bracket of the season has been posted now that non-conference play has wrapped up and the conference slate is now in full swing. Here are some important notes from the first projection.                                

                                       Marquette's ceiling

• After a poor showing in out of conference play, a lot of bracketology experts thought that Marquette would have to claw their way through the Big East schedule for an at-large bid. Fast forward two weeks and the Golden Eagles are 3-0 in conference, with three top 100 wins (although each game was down to the wire). The S-Curve after team #40 is close to awful this year, so they fit in safely the 7-9 seed range. 9-9 in conference play should seal an at-large bid, and with opportunities at home against Notre Dame and Syracuse down the road, the Eagles have the opportunity to go even higher (a 5 or 6).

                                                  Is there a case for a Gonzaga 1 seed?

• What else are the Zags supposed to do in their out of conference slate? They scheduled extremely tough knowing that the WCC was facing a down year. They drilled Oklahoma and Kansas State away from home, won at Oklahoma State on New Years Eve, beat a decent Baylor team that is in consideration for an at-large, and come three time zones east for a Saturday prime-time match up against a scorching hot Butler squad. The home loss to Illinois is no blemish and is the only thing standing between them and perfection. That's a lot more than Louisville, Syracuse and Indiana accomplished in the non-conference schedule. Heck, Syracuse traditionally refuses to schedule a true road game before Big East play. Despite the fact that Gonzaga has nine upcoming conference games against RPI 150+ teams, it's unfair to punish a team for a conference slate they didn't choose. They're the model of what the selection committee preaches for scheduling. If they somehow win out or lose just one more game through March, they should receive serious consideration for the top line. 

                                       Illinois needs to correct itself before it wrecks itself

• A little over a month ago I heaped praise on the Illini for results that John Groce was getting out of his team, and how this year was certainly different from the last. But Illinois has started Big Ten play a 1-3, with a terrible loss to Purdue and followed up with two behind the woodshed beatings from Wisconsin and Minnesota. This follows a disturbing pattern from 2011-2012, when they started hot and finished miserably. The lapses on the defensive end are concerning to say the least, and some of the turnovers they commit are just silly. But it's not too late. There are 14 games left, and Illinois needs to win eight of them and they're a lock for the tournament (seven would probably make them safe as well). It doesn't even really matter which teams they beat from here until March 17th because they've already racked up three signature wins. Like Marquette, they just need to get to .500 in conference play.                                                            

                                                 Creighton is more than a one man show

• Doug McDermott. Doug McDermott. Doug McDermott. There, I said his name three times to give the All-American his due credit. Now let's talk about how good rest of the team is. Is anyone noticing that Grant Gibbs has a 5:1 assist to turnover ratio? Or that Ethan Wragge is lights out from deep? (He needs to shoot it more and get more minutes, by the way. Same goes for Austin Chatman). After giving up 70 plus points in three of their first four, the Jays have given up 70 just once since their confounding loss to Boise on November 28th. Much of that is due to Greg Echenique becoming a defensive force down low while also scoring more consistently. While the Jays didn't get any really impressive wins out of conference, they had several solid wins (Arizona State, Wisconsin, Cal, Saint Joe's). That's enough to overcome their loss to a good Boise State and will get them a top 5 seed if they continue to play at a high level. And if Wragge and Chatman get hot in March, watch out. This team can make the Final Four.

    Without a doubt, Illinois basketball (and athletics in general) was an unmitigated disaster in early 2012. After a 10-0 start, the Illini faltered once Big Ten play began. They lost 10 of their final 11 games, and by the end of the season it was clear that Bruce Weber had lost his team.

    Fast forward to the summer, and Weber was long gone from Champaign. AD Mike Thomas had failed to lure his top target and former colleague, Shaka Smart, away from VCU. As The Illini finally settled on John Groce, skepticism quickly faded as he landed two high profile 2013 recruits. Could he really be the man to bring the program back to prominence? While the answer to that won't be determined for years, one thing is for sure: his team this year, comprised almost entirely of Weber holdovers, has bought in. So what is different from the team that started 10-0 last year? After all, they beat a ranked Gonzaga team last year as well and had the attention of the national media.

    Let's not give back handed compliments here: the success of this team is much more than Brandon Paul's ability to score the rock. The loss of NBA talent Meyers Leonard left a huge whole down low, so to compensate, Groce has EVERYONE on this team crashing the boards. Even his guards. No one on the team is averaging more than five boards per game, but nearly everyone in the eight man rotation is averaging at least three. While most of those haven't been offensive rebounds, it's been sufficient to keep their opponents from getting a ton of second chance points. If you have excellent guard play and you can limit the other team to one shot per possession, you'll win a solid amount of games.
   
    This leads to my second point. This team has multiple deadly three point shooters, and they haven't needed a lot in the way of offensive rebounds. Aside from Paul and DJ Richardson, 6-9 big man Tyler Griffey has been deadly at times from outside as well, hitting four threes against Butler and five against Georgia Tech. Having three key players shooting over 35 percent from beyond the arc means you'll have plenty of opportunities to penetrate and have open opportunities in the paint. Even though Griffey was cold from outside against the Zags, guards Tracey Abrams and Joseph Bertrand were able to pour in a lot of penetration points (not to mention Paul, who scored from everywhere on the court).

    So is this team the real deal this time or will they again choke when Big Ten play starts? My money right now says this team is for real. For starters, the Illini's hot start last year came almost entirely at home, and this year they're winning on the road. I think VERY highly of Gonzaga, and the Groce's squad went into Spokane and domiated the talented Bulldogs in the second half. You can shrug your shoulders at their win in Hawaii against Butler, but Butler has racked up non-conference wins against Marquette, North Carolina and Northwestern thus far. Illinois won that game by 17, and it really wasn't even that close. Whatever happens in the huge match up against rival Missouri, the selection committee will be quite impressed at the Illini's ability to win at home, neutral and away in the non-conference.

    What scares me about this team? The lack of assists (they're 222nd currently), assist/turnover ratio (1:1, yikes), and free throw shooting (71 percent). When Big Ten play starts, they aren't going to out muscle anyone, so they'll need to be able to distribute the ball efficiently when the three pointers aren't falling in order to win close games. They'll also need to up their free throw percentage to around 75 percent to compensate for a lack of putback points.

My prediction: If I had to seed them right now, it would be impossible to put Illinois any lower than a 3. I do think they'll have several off-nights in Big Ten play. But that's alright, because for every night they struggle from the field, they'll have just as many nights where they seemingly can't miss, and they'll win some big games because of it. I think they'll finish around 11-7 in conference play and 24-9 overall. That gives them several top 50 wins and easily puts them in the tournament as a 5 or 6 seed.

While it might be pointless to project a bracket before the New Year, November and December are extremely useful to determine where a team's and conferences ceilings are. 

Typical/expected response: "ZOMG! CONFERENCES DON'T EARN BIDS, TEAMS DO! THAT'S JUST BASIC BRACKETOLOGY MAN!" 

That is absolutely correct. But let's use a little Logic 101: If the conference you're playing in plays like garbage in the non-conference, then your team won't have much of an opportunity to get quality wins after December. So you better be damn close to perfect before Christmas AND you better not slip up more than once or twice in conference, or else you're destined for a double digit seed or (if you don't win an auto-bid) the NIT come March. 

Let's use Boise State and the Mountain West as an example. In case you haven't heard, Derrick Marks is a baller and the Broncos have surprised some people. In a typical year, a huge win at Creighton and an admirable showing at Michigan State would be pretty impressive. Regardless of the conference or future schedule, one could argue that the Broncos would have a shot at an-large in March as long as they played nearly flawless basketball the rest of the way. 

Bad news, the Broncos just lost to a bad Utah team. Congrats, you're screwed!

Except the Mountain West is really good this year. Perhaps even one of the top four conferences in the nation. Again, we know Mike Bobinski isn't sitting in an Indianapolis Penthouse saying to himself "The MWC totally rocks this year. They gets five bids!" 

I'm quite aware that it doesn't work like that. But San Diego State and New Mexico are the real deal, maybe even top four seeds this year. UNLV has looked solid and will definitely be there in March. Wyoming is undefeated and got two quality non-con wins in the past week. So if you're the Broncos, it looks like you could get eight opportunities for signature wins in 2013 (The Mountain West rocks it old school and plays each team twice). 

I know we're dealing with hypotheticals at this point in the season, but let's say that the Broncos go 3-5 in those games and 8-6 in the conference. That probably puts them at 4-6 vs RPI top 50 and around .500 vs RPI top 100 teams. If that happens, they're dancing. I'd bet my parent's Australian Shepperd on it. And he's a really cute ass dog. 

"NO WAY! THAT RESUME WOULD NEVER GET A TEAM INTO THE DANCE!!!!" 

Yeah? 

Here's a team with a worse resume that got in the 2012 field. 

And an even worse resume from 2011. 

The bottom of the at-large pool is ugly since the field expanded to 68. And Boise State (or any other team from a solid conference) doesn't need to have a great resume come March. It just needs to be good enough. 

And with that, here are my conferences and teams with high and low ceilings as of December 5th.  My first bracket projection will come after a few more key games have been played:

High Ceilings Good teams with the potential for a high seed in March. These teams can also afford a few blemishes on their resume and still get an-at large:

• Big Ten (Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Minnesota, Ohio State, Northwestern)
• Big East (Louisville, Syracuse, Cincinnati, Pitt, Georgetown, Notre Dame)
  

• SEC (Florida, Mizzou)
  
• Mountain West (New Mexico, San Diego St., UNLV, Wyoming, Boise State)
• ACC (Duke, Virginia Tech, Miami)
  
• Big 12 (Kansas, Oklahoma State, Baylor)
  
• A10 (Saint Josephs, VCU, Butler)
• Pac 12 (Arizona, Colorado, Oregon)
• Others (Wichita State, Creighton, Gonzaga)

Low Ceilings: Good teams that are destined for an 8 seed or higher in March. They also can not afford more than one bad loss.

• Belmont
  

• Lehigh
• George Mason
• Bucknell
• Illinois-Chicago
• Murray State
• Ohio

*Note that there are some big name teams with high expectations missing from this list. It's because I don't know what to make of them. They may have the talent, but haven't proven anything on the court yet. I'm looking at you, Kentucky, Michigan State, North Carolina and NC State.