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 NCAA Tournament. You will notice that some of these squads are also listed in the NIT bracket. The reason for this is two-fold. First and foremost, it shows how close those teams are to getting at-large bids in the NCAA tournament field. Secondly, it shows where those squads would be seeded if in fact they lost in their conference tournament and garnered an automatic bid to the NIT.
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 11th.
NCAA Tourney Field:
1-seeds: Virginia, Villanova, Xavier, Clemson
2-seeds: Auburn, Purdue, Kansas, North Carolina
3-seeds: Duke, Michigan State, Texas Tech, Tennessee
4-seeds: Ohio State, Rhode Island, Cincinnati, West Virginia
5-seeds: Oklahoma, Arizona, Seton Hall, Texas A & M
6-seeds: Kentucky, Miami-FL, Creighton, TCU
7-seeds: Nevada, Butler, Michigan, Arizona State
8-seeds: Missouri, Arkansas, Wichita State, Alabama
9-seeds: Providence, St. Mary’s, Gonzaga, Texas
10-seeds: Florida, Washington, Louisville, Houston
11-seeds: Florida State, Syracuse, Temple, Mississippi State, UCLA, Southern California
12-seeds: Middle Tennessee, New Mexico State, Buffalo, Loyola-IL
13-seeds: South Dakota State, Vermont, East Tennessee State, Belmont
14-seeds: Rider, UL-Lafayette, College of Charleston, UC Santa Barbara
15-seeds: Montana, Bucknell, Northern Kentucky, UNC-Asheville
16-seeds: Wagner, Florida Gulf Coast, Penn, Nicholls State, Savannah State, Grambling
NIT Tourney Field:
1-seeds: NC State, St. Bonaventure, Middle Tennessee, New Mexico State
2-seeds: Marquette, Kansas State, Virginia Tech, Baylor
3-seeds: Utah, Georgia, Nebraska, Western Kentucky
4-seeds: Boise State, Colorado, SMU, Maryland
5-seeds: LSU, Notre Dame, Boston College, Buffalo
6-seeds: Loyola-IL, South Dakota State, Oregon, Vermont
7-seeds: East Tennessee State, Oklahoma State, Iowa State, UCF
8-seeds: South Carolina Penn State, Northwestern, Belmont
Ranking of Other Postseason Contenders: Rider, UL-Lafayette, College of Charleston, Wyoming, Brigham Young, Tulsa, UC Santa Barbara, Stanford
So you’ve moved Cincinnati up to a 4… But still are two seed lines lower than what the actual committee just told you would be the top 16 teams as of now… And that’s after they added a blowout road win at SMU (albeit short-handed/injury riddled).
I thought you were trying to predict what the committee would do if the season ended right now. But guess what? They just told you what the top 16 would be. And you can’t even ctrl+C and Ctrl+V that information.
This was anti-UC bias from the beginning. He has been quietly sliding UC from the #8 seed after beating teams the last few weeks. The guy who pointed out the quadrant issue was spot on and something this guy didn’t account for.