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, and the bolded teams are squads who have already clinched automatic bids to either the NCAA or NIT.  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 Mondays and Fridays).  This bracket projection has been updated through all games played on Sunday February 26th.

NCAA Tourney Field:

1-seeds: Kansas, Villanova, North Carolina, Oregon

2-seeds: Louisville, Baylor, Butler, Gonzaga

3-seeds: Arizona, UCLA, Kentucky, Florida State

4-seeds: Duke, Florida, West Virginia, Notre Dame

5-seeds: SMU, Virginia, Minnesota, Purdue

6-seeds: Cincinnati, St. Mary’s, Creighton, Oklahoma State

7-seeds: Dayton, Wisconsin, Maryland, Xavier

8-seeds: Miami-FL, Iowa State, Virginia Tech, Arkansas

9-seeds: South Carolina, VCU, Michigan State, Michigan

10-seeds: Seton Hall, Southern California, Middle Tennessee, Vanderbilt

11-seeds: Northwestern, Providence, California, TCU, Illinois, Rhode Island

12-seeds: Wichita State, UT-Arlington, Nevada, UNC Wilmington

13-seeds: Monmouth, Vermont, Akron, Belmont

14-seeds: Princeton, East Tennessee State, Bucknell, Winthrop 

15-seeds: Cal State Bakersfield, Florida Gulf Coast, Oakland, South Dakota

16-seeds: Texas Southern, North Dakota, UC Irvine, New Orleans, Mount St. Mary’s, North Carolina Central

NIT Tourney Field:

1-seeds:  Marquette, Wichita State, Syracuse, Illinois State

2-seeds: Kansas State, Pittsburgh, Clemson, Wake Forest

3-seeds: Ohio State, Georgia, Houston, UT-Arlington,

4-seeds: Tennessee, Nevada, Ole Miss, UNC Wilmington

5-seeds: Boise State, Monmouth, Indiana, Georgia Tech

6-seeds: Vermont, Charleston, Brigham Young, Stanford

7-seeds: Texas A & M, Auburn, Alabama, Utah

8-seeds: UCF, Akron, Richmond, Belmont

Ranking of Other Postseason Contenders: Iowa, Colorado State, St. Bonaventure, Texas Tech, New Mexico