This edition of "Bracket Math" includes games through Wednesday. Rankings reflect an up-to-date seed list from yours truly, posing as one hypothetical member of the NCAA men's basketball committee.
Over the years, I haven't been too kind to Notre Dame. The Fighting Irish consistently do three things that make me crazy.
First, the Irish don't care how terrible their nonconference schedule might be. This year it ranks 329th out of 351 Division I teams.
Second, the Irish have taken the national aversion to true road games to epic levels. In the last five years they've played exactly two -- that's T-W-O -- total road games outside their respective Big East/ACC schedules. And one of those games, at Iowa last season, was mandated by the ACC/Big Ten challenge.
Finally, to be kind, Notre Dame doesn't place a heavy emphasis on the defensive end of the floor. Even counting their potentially historic season in progress, the Irish have a defensive efficiency ranking of No. 157 in the country. And that's after ranking No. 204 last season.
So I keep waiting for all of these negatives to catch up with the Fighting Irish. I keep thinking they're going to get to conference play one of these years and just collapse. Instead -- barring injury-plagued seasons -- the opposite has occurred.