Bracketology 2017: Answering the Biggest Questions on the NCAA Tournament Field

With Thursday's madness in the books and Friday's on tap, there are only 78 games remaining until Sunday's NCAA tournament selection show. But it feels like there are at least twice that many burning questions about who's in, who's out and which teams need to do what to be seeded where.

In the remaining hours until the tournament field is announced, you can keep up with our real-time projections and bubble watch to get an idea of what to expect when those brackets are released.

However, we can't cover everything in that article, so as a stopgap, here's a Twitter Q&A, beginning with a question from @ColemanAt about the team we haven't been able to stop talking about all season:

"

@kerrancejames if Duke win out they move into a 2 seed?

— Coleman Thompson (@ColemanAt) March 9, 2017"

"If Duke win out they move into a 2 seed?"

We're including the text of each question in case someone deletes a tweet, leaving you with no clue what the question was.

This one came in right after Duke's come-from-behind win over Louisville in the ACC quarterfinal. For the record, that raised some serious concerns about the Cardinals' ability to score away from home against a zone defense. But that's a matter for another day.

The win pushed Duke to 11-6 against the RPI Top 50 and 6-4 against the RPI Top 25. Though the Blue Devils did suffer eight losses, they are our top No. 3 seed.

It's impossible to envision a scenario where they fall below the No. 3 line at this point. They have too many great wins, and the combination of teams close behind them on the projected seed list is such that there won't be four that leapfrog them. For example, Duke is ahead of both Arizona and UCLA, but one of those teams is guaranteed to lose when they face each other Friday night. The same goes for Florida State and Notre Dame.

If a No. 3 seed is their floor, though, what's the ceiling?

Al Bello/Getty Images

A win over North Carolina would indeed bump the Blue Devils up to a No. 2 seed. At that point, they would have seven wins against the RPI Top 25. Bring up the home loss to N.C. State all you want, but a team with that many wins against title contenders is doing no worse than a No. 2 seed.

But even with a subsequent win in the ACC championship game, a No. 1 seed seems unlikely. There have been some six- and seven-loss teams on the top line over the years, but an eight-loss team that finished fifth in its conference? Even if you feel this ACC is the best conference in college basketball history, that's going a little too far—particularly given the strength of the resumes on the projected No. 1 line.

Our next question comes from @morrisoncrying:

"Is beating Kentucky Georgia's only hope?"

The short answer? Yes.

The long answer? Georgia is in a similar boat to the one Clemson was in for the past two months. This is a good team that just can't seem to close out victories over other good teams.

The Bulldogs are 1-8 against the RPI Top 50, but those eight losses came by an average margin of 8.4 points. And that includes the 18-point loss at Arkansas in the regular-season finale. Before that, the average margin was 7.0 points. They took both Florida and Kentucky to overtime on the road but were unable to prevail in the extra session. The two losses to South Carolina were by a combined margin of eight points. They hung with Kansas at a "neutral site" in Kansas City, Missouri.

Jim Brown-USA TODAY Sports

But sooner or later, you have to beat quality opponents. That rings especially true when you also have losses to Marquette, Clemson, Alabama, Texas A&M and Oakland. Similar to Wake Forest's regular-season finish, with wins over Louisville and Virginia Tech, if you're hanging around the RPI Top 50 when you finally beat a few quality opponents, you've got a chance.

At the very least, Georgia must beat Kentucky to remain in the conversation. The Bulldogs did somehow sneak into the tournament two years ago without any great wins, but that team had a better RPI (37 in 2015 vs. 50 this year) and only 11 losses. Losing to Kentucky would leave Georgia with 14 losses and nothing better than a home win over Vanderbilt. That's not nearly enough.

The Dawgs probably need to beat South Carolina in the SEC semifinals too. As great as a win over Kentucky is, they're battling for the last couple of spots in the field with teams like Syracuse, Iowa and Vanderbilt, each of whom has at least five RPI Top 50 wins. Even without any of the awful losses those three teams have, one win over Kentucky and only one other RPI Top 65 victory wouldn't make for much of an argument for Georgia.

Next up is @DanfaheyJohn:

"Which mid-majors have the best chances to get at-large bids if they don't get the auto?"

All the drama in the major conferences over the past two days has clouded the fact there are a ton of "little guys" still in action. In total, there are 12 likely one-bid leagues that will be crowning their champions on Saturday and Sunday: America East, Big Sky, Big West, Conference-USA, Ivy League, Mid-American, Mid-Eastern, Mountain West, Southland, Southwestern, Sun Belt and Western Athletic.

From that batch, the best bet is Middle Tennessee out of Conference USA. The Blue Raiders are 28-4 overall with two wins against the RPI Top 50 (UNC Wilmington and Vanderbilt) and two more against the RPI Top 75 (Belmont and Ole Miss). They also nearly won a road game against VCU, which would have made them 5-0 against the RPI Top 75. They picked up a couple of bad losses along the way, but they have proved they belong in the field regardless of how the CUSA tournament ends.

Another team that is neck-and-neck with MTSU in terms of RPI is the Sun Belt's Texas-Arlington. At No. 36, the Mavericks are just one spot behind the Blue Raiders, and they have one heck of a best great win, beating Saint Mary's by 14 on the road. They, too, suffered some bad losses along the way (Texas State, Troy and Coastal Carolina), but each was a road loss and not one of them was to a team outside the RPI Top 200.

Chris Covatta/Getty Images

Last but not least among those still playing, the Mountain West's Nevada has the best RPI of the bunch at No. 34. The Wolf Pack only played one game against the RPI Top 65 and lost that season opener at Saint Mary's, but they have seven RPI Top 100 wins and another six wins against teams in the 101-150 range.

Until last season, it was almost a given that the MWC would produce multiple bids, but the conference has been struggling lately. But if Nevada were to lose to Colorado State in the championship game, it would have a strong case for a bid.

The three teams hoping that all three of those teams win their respective conference tournaments so they can be at the top of the at-large minor conference pecking order are Illinois State, Monmouth and College of Charleston. Some have clamored for Belmont, but the Bruins went 0-4 against the RPI Top 145 and had a hideous loss to Tennessee Tech. They're toast.

Illinois State probably has the best case, with a great win over Wichita State and a total of 19 wins against Missouri Valley competition, but bad losses to Tulsa and Murray State could be a problem. Monmouth is the one we all want to see get in because it was snubbed last year, but a PJ Dozier buzzer-beater in November that robbed the Hawks of a quality win may be the deciding factor.

Charleston is a team no one is talking about, though. The Cougars (RPI: 61) had a great road win over UNC Wilmington (RPI: 25) and four other wins against the RPI Top 100. Their worst loss of the season was at LSU, but that hasn't stopped people from peddling Houston as an at-large candidate. Charleston won't be in my final projection, but it would be an understandable inclusion from the committee in a year in which everyone is yelling at them to include some at-large minor conference teams.

That got a little soapboxy, didn't it? Better keep things short for these last few. Our next Twitter question comes from @steelguy26:

"Where do you stand on quality wins vs bad losses argument? Aka Syracuse."

This is the ultimate, unanswered conundrum when discussing teams on the bubble. There's no clear-cut ratio for how many good wins it takes to erase a bad loss, but that's because not all good wins and bad wins are created equally.

As a rule of thumb, I like to see one RPI Top 50 win for every loss outside the RPI Top 100 and one RPI Top 50 win for every three total losses suffered. It's certainly not a perfect formula, as a team could go 8-24 with all RPI Top 50 wins and still meet the criteria, but it's a good starting point when considering teams with 10-15 losses.

As far as it pertains to Syracuse, the Orange fit that bill. However, they have a horrible RPI (87), they didn't have any wins away from home against the RPI Top 60 and three of their six RPI Top 50 wins are against the bottom 25 percent of that group. If you're going to lose to Boston College, Connecticut, St. John's and Georgetown, you need more than three great home wins to dance.

Next up is @PaulKilgas:

"If UCF were to beat Memphis and SMU, do they get at-large look at 22-10 prior to AAC title? Two bad losses w/o best player"

As much as I'd love to see Matt Williams raining threes and Tacko Fall blocking souls in the NCAA tournament, it's not happening without an automatic bid.

If the Knights were closer to the cut line, perhaps the committee would give some consideration to the fact that B.J. Taylor wasn't there for the losses to George Washington and Penn. However, they weren't impressive enough with a full deck for that to come into play. The recent home win over Cincinnati was nice, but it was their first RPI Top 50 win and just the third against the RPI Top 100.

Factor in the five losses outside the RPI Top 100, and UCF's ratio I was talking about in the previous question isn't great, even with a semifinal win over SMU. Still, a heck of a first season at UCF for Johnny Dawkins and a great sign of things to come. Fall and Taylor are only sophomores, and the Knights have transfers Aubrey Dawkins (Michigan), Terrell Allen (Drexel) and Dayon Griffin (Louisiana Tech) on the bench and ready to make a big impact next year.

And our final question comes from @mmoats1997:

"

@kerrancejames most likely mid major to win round one? My guess is UNCW

— Mason Moats (@mmoats1997) March 9, 2017"

"Most likely mid major to win round one? My guess is UNCW."

I'm guessing we're not not including Gonzaga, Saint Mary's, Wichita State, Illinois State, Dayton, VCU, Rhode Island, SMU or Cincinnati as mid-majors? Most of those teams are always in the tournament and most of those leagues always get multiple bids.

After removing those, my answer would be: Show me the bracket.

I like UNC Wilmington too, but it is one of the most undersized teams in the country. If the Seahawks draw a team like Purdue in the first round, they're going to get rebounded and posted up to death.

Before seeing the field, though, there's a good chance I'll be talking myself into Florida Gulf Coast making another appearance as Cinderella.

---

Thanks to everyone who submitted questions. It's been fun chatting with you all on Twitter throughout the week. Let's keep it going for at least a few more weeks.

Stats are courtesy of WarrenNolan.com, KenPom.com and Sports Reference and are current through start of play Friday, March 10. Win-loss records only include games played against D-I opponents.

Kerry Miller covers college basketball for Bleacher Report.