Ramblings from the Ultimate Sports Sentimentalist

Here are my latest NCAA and NIT bracket projections.  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.  Also, just to clarify, my bracket projection is intended to project the NCAA Tournament field if it was chosen today.  Unlike some bracketologists, I am not trying to predict how each team will finish the season and then seed the teams based on that.  There is one slight exception to this rule, however, and that is that I have always chosen to award the projected automatic bid for each conference to my projected best team in that conference, and not the team who is currently leading the conference standings.   Given how unbalanced conference schedules are, it just seems like common sense to project that the best team in a conference will win the league championship, not the squad currently in first place.

Brad-ketology columns will be published at least twice a week (typically on Mondays and Fridays) and more often than that when it gets closer to tourney time.  This bracket projection has been updated through all games played on Sunday February 19th.

NCAA Tourney Field:

1-seeds: Kentucky, Syracuse, Missouri, Duke

• Note: No one knows what to do with the last # 1 seed now, but I’m going with the Dookies who have a better RPI and less losses than all of the other teams in contention for it.

2-seeds: North Carolina, Kansas, Michigan State, Ohio State

• Note: The big disappointment in this group is Ohio State who is no longer my highest seeded Big 10 squad.

3-seeds: Georgetown, Marquette, Baylor, Michigan

• Note: Baylor is playing really bad basketball right now, but if you look at their total body of work I think they still deserve inclusion on the 3 line.  Of course that could all change on Monday night as the Bears travel to Austin to play the Longhorns.

4-seeds: Florida, Louisville, Wichita State, Indiana

• Note: It seems like every time a new squad takes over as my highest seeded non-BCS team they immediately suffer a devastating loss (see Gonzaga on Saturday).  Let’s hope the Shockers can break that trend.
  

5-seeds: Wisconsin, Florida State, Temple, UNLV,

• Note: The Owls are very quietly sliding up the S-Curve and putting together one of the best mid-major tourney resumes in the country.

6-seeds: Vanderbilt, New Mexico, Creighton, Gonzaga

• Note: The Lobos have come out of nowhere to take control the Mountain West conference race.  Nevertheless, UNLV’s non-conference win over North Carolina still has me calling for them to be the top seeded from that conference at this point in time.
  

7-seeds: Murray State, Saint Mary’s, Notre Dame, Kansas State

• Note: I may have K-State higher than most other bracketologists at this point, but the Wildcats’ road win over Baylor was a big one.
  

8-seeds: Iowa State, Virginia, Harvard, California

• Note: A few national publications have Iowa State on the bubble, but I just don’t see it.  The Big 12 is probably the best conference in the country this season, which should mean that their top 5 teams are guaranteed to dance.

9-seeds: San Diego State, Southern Miss, Saint Louis, Connecticut

• Note: Three of these teams picked up heartbreaking/bad losses over the weekend, while the other, the Billikens of Saint Louis, continue to slide up the S-curve without anyone paying them a bit of attention.  You would think Rick Majerus’ impending return to the Big Dance would garner more national attention.
  

10-seeds: West Virginia, Purdue, Mississippi State, Memphis

• Note: All four of these teams are headed in the wrong direction at the wrong time of year.  They are all dancing at this point, but come Selection Sunday I think one of these current 10 seeds finds themselves on the wrong side of the bubble.

11-seeds: Brigham Young, Seton Hall, Alabama, Cincinnati

• Note: The current bubble begins with BYU in my opinion.  None of the current 11 and 12 seeds can feel safe at this point.

12-seeds: Xavier, Miami-FL, Washington, Northwestern, NC State, Arizona

• Note: Somehow virtually every team on the current NCAA tournament bubble keeps losing.  Thus, squads like NC and State and Arizona can keep losing and still remain in the Big Dance.  One of these bubble teams has to get a statement win at some point, right?

13-seeds: Long Beach State, Middle Tennessee, Oral Roberts, Iona

• Note: Long Beach could have shot itself ahead of all the bubble teams with a win over Creighton this weekend, and even though the 49ers took the Bluejays to the buzzer, I think they’re going to need to win their conference tourney to secure a dance bid.
  

14-seeds: Drexel, Davidson, Akron, Nevada

• Note: The Colonial ended up being the standout conference this weekend during Bracketbusters, as the top six teams in the league picked up big victories.  Could we have a repeat of last season where the CAA snags a surprise at-large berth?
  

15-seeds: Belmont, Cleveland State, Weber State, Bucknell

• Note: What’s wrong with Bucknell?  They were absolutely dominating the Patriot League before picking up back-to-back losses last week.

16-seeds: LIU-Brooklyn, UT-Arlington, UNC-Asheville, Norfolk State, Vermont, Mississippi Valley State

• Note: Kentucky, Long Beach State, Mississippi Valley State, and UT-Arlington are still the only four teams who are unbeaten in conference play.

NIT Tourney Field:

1-seeds: Minnesota, Texas, Central Florida, Oregon

2-seeds: Colorado, Illinois, St. Joe’s, Colorado State

3-seeds: LSU, South Florida, Ole Miss, Dayton

4-seeds: Arkansas, Stanford, Marshall, Wyoming

5-seeds: VCU, South Dakota State, UMass, New Mexico State

6-seeds: Northern Iowa, George Mason, La Salle, Wagner

7-seeds: Buffalo, Maryland, Valpo, Kent State

8-seeds: Pittsburgh, Virginia Tech, Loyola Marymount, Ohio

Ranking of Other Postseason Contenders: Montana, St. Bonaventure, Tennessee, Loyola-MD, Missouri State, UCLA, TCU