Can Cincinnati Get A 1 Seed?

The Bearcats won their 14th straight game on Saturday as they limped to a 67-59 win over UConn. Cincinnati improved to 20-2 on the season, and as February hits we start to think about seeding for the NCAA Tournament, and the Bearcats can make a case for a #1 seed come March.

Quadrant Wins

The NCAA announced that they would going towards Quadrant wins to put more of an emphasis on road wins. Basically there are four quadrants and here are how they are broken down.

Quadrant 1 Wins: Home RPI 1-30, Neutral RPI 1-50, Away RPI 1-75

Quadrant 2 Wins: Home RPI 31-75, Neutral RPI 51-100, Away RPI 76-135

Quadrant 3 Wins: Home RPI 67-160, Neutral RPI 101-200, Away RPI 136-240

Quadrant 4 Wins: Home RPI 161+, Neutral RPI 201+, Away RPI 241+

The one thing hurting Cincinnati is a lack of quality wins. They sit just 2-2 against Quadrant 1 teams, but if they could win out, that would mean that they would finish at 7-2 against Quadrant 1 teams. Those 5 wins would come against @SMU, @Houston, and then twice against Wichita in the regular season and then assuming they would play Wichita in the AAC Final.

With Cincinnati being 2-2 against Quadrant 1 teams that means there only two losses have come to Quadrant 1 teams. So Cincinnati has no bad losses holding them back which should help them a loss. We saw how much an upset loss can hurt your seeding last year, when a 4 loss UC team was given a 6 seed.

Bracketmatrix

Bracketmatrix.com is an average of where all the "bracketologists" have every team in the field. Cincinnati currently averages a three seed out of the 79 bracketologists listed on bracketmatrix.com. They also rank these bracket experts and bracketville.wordpress.com has had the best percentage over the last 5 years and he currently Cincinnati as a 3 seed and he also has 4 teams in from the American.

Getting Through The Tough Stretch

If UC can get through their next 4 games, then I think the 1 seed talk can become a legit conversation. Their next four games are against UCF, @SMU, @Houston, and Wichita State. That's three Quadrant 1 chances right there and then a Quadrant 2 chance against UCF at home. The chance if there for Cincinnati to take it.

If Cincinnati wins out, then I believe a 31-2 UC would get a one seed. After, Villanova and Virginia, I think there are still a lot of teams alive for those final two one seed's assuming neither suffers a couple upsets to end the year.