Those with an insatiable interest in March Madness have a book to read
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For Joe Lunardi, March Madness is just a one-month part of Annual Endlessness. As ESPN’s bracketologist, he has become synonymous with the bracketing and seeding process of the NCAA Tournament.
Fans, coaches and media members want to know which teams his research suggests will receive bids, what seed they will receive and where they will play.
February only intensifies this unquenchable interest.
“I know for better or worse there are people for the next four or five weeks who want any word or thought I have,” Lunardi said before flashing his playful sense of humor. “Those people need another hobby.”
Lunardi added to this ever-growing fan-tournament symmetry by putting out a book titled — what else? — “Bracketology.”
Lunardi agreed to work with co-author David Smale on one condition.
“I said, if this book can be like you’re having a beer with me at the end of the bar, then I’m in,” he said. “Hopefully, that’s what it is.”
A product of Triumph Books, “Bracketology: March Madness, College Basketball, and the Creation of a National Obsession” is written in the first person with Lunardi recalling the history of bracketing/seeding and detailing how the selection committee goes about its business.
By the way, sportswriter Mike Jenson of The Philadelphia Inquirer first dubbed Lunardi a bracketologist. Or did he?
As the story is told in Chapter One, Jensen was writing a story about Temple’s chances of making the NCAA Tournament and referred to Lunardi as “a local bracketologist.”
But Jensen contends that Lunardi, who then worked for Saint Joseph’s University, called himself that.
Whichever is true, Lunardi began his life assessing teams and predicting seeds with the 1997 NCAA Tournament.
With Selection Sunday 2022 less than a month away, Lunardi saw Kentucky as a national championship contender.
“If I had to pick the Final Four today, I would definitely include them,” he said in a telephone interview earlier this month.
Lunardi’s sense of humor comes through in the book and in telephone conversations.
For instance, he compiled a bracket for the 2020 NCAA Tournament, which, of course, was canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic. Perhaps out of habit, he had teams “advance.”
Kentucky played Duke in the East Region finals. “I flipped it,” Lunardi said. “They won 104-103.”
Of course, “they” were the Kentucky Wildcats. The flipping was a reference to Duke beating Kentucky by that score in the 1992 East Region finals thanks to Christian Laettner’s game-winning shot.
In Lunardi’s pretend bracket, Kentucky lost to Michigan State in the Final Four semifinals. The Spartans won the championship.
John Calipari has contended that Kentucky would have won the 2020 championship had the tournament actually been played.
“It’s funny,” Lunardi said. “I’ve only heard 357 other coaches say the exact same thing.”
More than once Calipari has implied that the selection committee deliberately tried to thwart Kentucky with a bad seed or by stacking UK’s path to the Final Four with challenging opponents.
“I would encourage Cal to do a mock selection exercise or take my class,” Lunardi said. “He would realize just how hard it is to manipulate that.”
Calipari had a valid reason to question the committee in 2016, Lunardi said. That’s when Kentucky defeated Texas A&M in the SEC Tournament finals, yet the Selection Sunday show later that day revealed UK as a four-seed in the NCAA Tournament East Region while A&M was a three-seed in the West.
“They screwed up, in my judgment,” Lunardi said. “But I don’t think the screw up was, like, an anti-Kentucky thing. I think it was just a seeding error. And there are a half-dozen of those, you could argue, every year.”
The interest is so great — and bracketology is such a valuable promotional tool for ESPN — that Lunardi has put out an ultra-early bracket for the following year’s NCAA Tournament the night of the championship game. He admitted some reluctance, saying, “I want to be a fan and watch ‘One Shining Moment.’”
The transfer portal makes these projections an exercise in assessing teams that haven’t even been fully assembled yet. This leads to monthly bracket updates April through October.
“It’s a good thing for bracketology,” Lunardi said. “It’s not a good thing for my golf game.”
Strength of schedule
It is well-documented that Kentucky played ho-hum opponents in home games during the non-conference portion of the schedule. Joe Lunardi dismissed that as relevant to what seed UK receives.
“They’re either going to have enough really good wins in the league to be a one-seed or they’re not,” said Lunardi, who added that UK’s victory at Kansas should answer any possible question about the team’s worthiness. “As positive an outcome as possibly could have happened at Kansas. What could they have done better than that?”
Lunardi suggested there was logic to UK Coach John Calipari’s scheduling.
“If I were him coming off a year missing the (NCAA) tournament, I may have also chosen to go a little softer than usual,” the ESPN bracketologist said. “They did it right this year.”
Calipari has repeatedly insisted Kentucky is playing one of the most challenging schedules in Division I. On his radio show Jan. 31, he said that UK had the sixth hardest schedule in the country.
And before beating Florida, he said, “we have the third-best schedule in the country right now.”
And after the loss at Tennessee, he said UK’s schedule would be ranked “one, two or three” by the end of the season.
Going into this weekend, Ken Pomeroy rated Kentucky ninth among SEC teams in strength of schedule at No. 36. Jeff Sagarin rated Kentucky 11th among SEC teams at No. 49.
Busy schedule
On Wednesday, Mississippi State began a stretch in which it would play three games in five days, four games in eight days.
State played at Alabama on Wednesday, then played Missouri at home on Friday and then will again play Missouri on Sunday. On the eighth day (next Wednesday), State plays at South Carolina.
COVID caused the rescheduling of the second Missouri game.
Because hard practices the day before a game are to be avoided, State interrupted Monday’s preparation for Alabama to work for 30 minutes on how to play Missouri, Coach Ben Howland said.
“You hate to do that,” he said. “But it is what it is.”
Dogging it
Joe Lunardi’s book also details how he did a bracket for the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show in Madison Square Garden. He said he stayed in the Hotel Pennsylvania across the street.
“Me and 312 pooches walking through the lobby,” he said.
Lunardi’s wife, Pam, had an idea for Lunardi’s seeding and bracketing. “You should call it ‘bark-etology,” she said.
Television people liked the idea as a way to appeal to the masses, Lunardi said in the book. Dog show officials did not. But “bark-etology” was the name used for his dog show bracket.
Color-coded
Bracketologist Joe Lunardi spoke to the Big Orange Tipoff Club earlier this month. His comedic sense told him that jokes at the expense of Kentucky basketball would go over well.
Alas, the night before he appeared Lunardi had moved Kentucky to a No. 1 seed in his 2022 NCAA Tournament bracket. He shelved poking fun at UK’s expense and confessed to his audience.
“Nobody booed,” Lunardi said.
To cushion the blow, Lunardi told the crowd that his book entitled “Bracketology” has an orange cover.
“I told them I picked the color of the book just for them,” Lunardi said. “You know, I didn’t want to say, hey, it’s the same color as the ball.”
Happy birthday
To Al Robinson. He turned 84 on Thursday. … To Michael Jordan. He turned 59 on Thursday. … To Olivier Sarr. He turns 23 on Sunday. … To UK assistant coach Orlando Antigua. He turns 49 on Sunday. … To Charles Barkley. He turns 59 on Sunday. … To Rajon Rondo. He turns 36 on Tuesday. … To Phil Argento. He turns 75 on Tuesday. … To former UK assistant coach Herb Sendek. He turns 59 on Tuesday. … To Julius Erving. Dr. J turns 72 on Tuesday. … To Jamal Murray. He turns 25 on Wednesday. … To Tom Heitz. He turns 61 on Wednesday.
This story was originally published February 19, 2022 at 6:15 AM.
