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.

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 Sundays 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 Thursday March 5th.

NCAA Tourney Field:

1-seeds: Kentucky, Virginia, Duke, Villanova

2-seeds: Arizona, Kansas, Wisconsin, Gonzaga

3-seeds: Maryland, Utah, Wichita State, Iowa State

4-seeds: Baylor, Oklahoma, North Carolina, Northern Iowa

5-seeds: Notre Dame, Arkansas, Louisville, West Virginia

6-seeds: Providence, Georgetown, Butler, SMU

7-seeds: San Diego State, Colorado State, Dayton, VCU

8-seeds: St. John’s, Michigan State, Georgia, Oklahoma State

9-seeds: Xavier, Temple, Ohio State, Boise State

10-seeds: Iowa, Cincinnati, Oregon, NC State

11-seeds: Ole Miss, Davidson, Indiana, Old Dominion

12-seeds: LSU, Texas A & M, Texas, Brigham Young, Wofford, Harvard

13-seeds: Iona, Valpo, Murray State, Stephen F. Austin

14-seeds: UC Davis, Central Michigan, Eastern Washington, Georgia State

15-seeds: High Point, South Dakota State, William & Mary, North Carolina Central

16-seeds: Albany, Texas Southern, New Mexico State, Bucknell, North Florida, St. Francis (NY)

NIT Tourney Field:

1-seeds: UCLA, Tulsa, Illinois, Wofford

2-seeds: Purdue, Miami-FL, Pittsburgh, Stanford

3-seeds: Harvard, St. Mary’s, Iona, Rhode Island

4-seeds: Valpo, Green Bay, Richmond, UConn

5-seeds: Murray State, Seton Hall, UMass, Minnesota

6-seeds: Stephen F. Austin, Memphis, Louisiana Tech, UTEP

7-seeds: Arizona State, UC Davis, Alabama, Yale

8-seeds: Clemson, Wyoming, Central Michigan, Buffalo

Ranking of Other Postseason Contenders: Tennessee, George Washington, Vanderbilt, Eastern Washington, Georgia State, Toledo, California