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 Thursday January 18th.

NCAA Tourney Field:

1-seeds: Villanova, Virginia, Purdue, Duke

2-seeds: Kansas, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Xavier

3-seeds: West Virginia, Clemson, Auburn, Texas Tech

4-seeds: Michigan State, Seton Hall, Tennessee, Kentucky

5-seeds: Arizona, Rhode Island, Creighton, Ohio State

6-seeds: Arizona State, Butler, Wichita State, Arkansas

7-seeds: Louisville, Michigan, Miami-FL, TCU

8-seeds: Nevada, Cincinnati, Florida, Missouri

9-seeds: Texas, Florida State, Alabama, Texas A & M

10-seeds: Marquette, Syracuse, Providence, Georgia

11-seeds: Notre Dame, St. Mary’s, St. Bonaventure, UCLA, Washington, Gonzaga

12-seeds: Western Kentucky, New Mexico State, Buffalo, Missouri State

13-seeds: South Dakota State, Wright State, UC Davis, Vermont

14-seeds: East Tennessee State, Hofstra, UL-Lafayette, Belmont

15-seeds: Stephen F. Austin, Radford, Iona, Bucknell

16-seeds: Montana, Robert Morris, Penn, Florida Gulf Coast, North Carolina A & T, Jackson State

NIT Tourney Field:

1-seeds: Houston, Western Kentucky, Maryland, New Mexico State

2-seeds: NC State, Southern California, Colorado, South Carolina

3-seeds: Boise State, Buffalo, SMU, Utah

4-seeds: Nebraska, Boston College, UCF, LSU

5-seeds: Mississippi State, Virginia Tech, Oklahoma State, Kansas State

6-seeds: Middle Tennessee, Oregon, Stanford, Missouri State

7-seeds: South Dakota State, Loyola-IL, Baylor, Minnesota

8-seeds: UConn, Ole Miss, Memphis, Wright State