Bracketology from the Sports Sentimentalist- February 15th Edition
Posted by deaconcat08 on February 15, 2010
The teams below are displayed below on an S-curve, so they are ranked from left to right within each seeding line. The italicized teams are ones predicted to win their conference tourney and gain an automatic bid to the dance. For the conferences who currently have NCAA tourney teams, it is assumed that one of those teams will win their conference tourney. If not, then a stolen bid would result, and the number of at-large bids would drop.
For the first time, I am presenting a full 65 team field for you to consider. Because of this, you will notice that some of the # 13 seeded conference champions are listed both in the big dance field and the NIT field. Their NIT inclusion simply shows what NIT seed that team would have if they were to lose in their conference tourney. Obviously, if they were to win their respective conference tourneys, then they would be deleted from the NIT field, and little dance at-large spots would open up. However, with the NIT, keep in mind that typically between 5-8 spots will be taken by small conference regular season champs who lose their conference tourneys and thereby get NIT auto bids.
NCAA Tourney Field:
1-seeds: Kansas, Kentucky, Villanova, Syracuse
2-seeds: Purdue, Duke, Kansas State, West Virginia
3-seeds: Texas, Vanderbilt, Gonzaga, New Mexico
4-seeds: Brigham Young, Georgetown, Wisconsin, Pittsburgh
5-seeds: Ohio State, Tennessee, Michigan State, Butler
6-seeds: Temple, Wake Forest, Texas A & M, Baylor
7-seeds: Clemson, Richmond, Maryland, Xavier
8-seeds: Georgia Tech, Rhode Island, Florida State, UNLV
9-seeds: Northern Iowa, Missouri, California, Dayton
10-seeds: Oklahoma State, Illinois, Charlotte, Louisville
11-seeds: Cornell, Virginia Tech, UTEP, Ole Miss
12-seeds: Saint Mary’s, Siena, Marquette, UAB
13-seeds: Old Dominion, Utah State, Kent State, Oakland
14-seeds: Sam Houston State, Weber State, Murray State, Charleston
15-seeds: Morgan State, Pacific, Belmont, Stony Brook
16-seeds: Robert Morris, Coastal Carolina, Arkansas State, Lehigh, Jackson State
NIT Tourney Field:
1-seeds: Old Dominion, Mississippi State, Florida, Cincinnati
2-seeds: San Diego State, Memphis, Virginia, Washington
3-seeds: Utah State, Arizona State, Notre Dame, South Florida
4-seeds: Connecticut, Wichita State, Northwestern, Tulsa
5-seeds: Texas Tech, South Carolina, Louisiana Tech, William & Mary
6-seeds: North Carolina, Seton Hall, St. John’s, Minnesota
7-seeds: Northeastern, Saint Louis, Marshall, Miami-FL
8-seeds: VCU, George Mason, Michigan, Oklahoma
Ranking of Other Postseason Contenders: New Mexico State, Illinois State, Drexel, Nevada , Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Iowa State, Portland
By the way, I would like to publicly call out NIT-ology and whoever runs the site (link: http://www.nitology.com/). In year’s past this site has been a good resource for NIT bracket projections, but their first predictions of this year were downright embarrassing. First of all, their NIT field included Southern Cal, who is ineligible for postseason play in 2010. Apparently they didn’t get the memo. Also, Minnesota wasn’t included in their field because they had them in as an NCAA at-large team. In actuality, the Gophers are a solid NIT 5 or 6 seed at this point time. Whoever runs this site please do some research and update your projections!