It’s officially March! The month of madness, mayhem, and miracles has begun! 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.   The bold teams are ones who have already clinched an automatic bid to the respective postseason tournament (NCAA or NIT).  You will notice that some teams are listed both the NCAA and NIT brackets.  These are teams predicted to be automatic qualifiers to the NCAA tournament that would also earn at-large bids to the NIT tournament but not the NCAA tourney.  The reason these teams are displayed like 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 28th.

NCAA Tourney Field:

1-seeds: Gonzaga, Michigan, Baylor, Illinois

2-seeds: Iowa, West Virginia, Ohio State, Alabama

3-seeds: Kansas, Houston, Florida State, Villanova

4-seeds: Virginia, Texas Tech, Arkansas, Creighton

5-seeds: Tennessee, Purdue, Wisconsin, Oklahoma State

6-seeds: Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado, Southern Cal

7-seeds: Brigham Young, Florida, Rutgers, Missouri

8-seeds: Virginia Tech, Clemson, Maryland, LSU

9-seeds: San Diego State, Loyola-IL, North Carolina, UCLA

10-seeds: Oregon, UConn, Georgia Tech, Louisville

11-seeds: Xavier, Seton Hall, St. Bonaventure, Boise State

12-seeds: Colorado State, VCU, Duke, Saint Louis, Western Kentucky, UC Santa Barbara

13-seeds: Toledo, Winthrop, Colgate, Abilene Christian

14-seeds: Belmont, Liberty, UNC-Greensboro, Bryant

15-seeds: Eastern Washington, South Dakota State, Siena, UMBC

16-seeds: James Madison, Grand Canyon, Texas State, Cleveland State, Prairie View, North Carolina A & T

NIT Tourney Field:

1-seeds: Drake, Indiana, Michigan State, Stanford

2-seeds: Richmond, Ole Miss, Utah State, Minnesota

3-seeds: Wichita State, SMU, Syracuse, Memphis

4-seeds: Western Kentucky, St. John’s, UC Santa Barbara, Toledo

5-seeds: Wright State, Providence, NC State, Winthrop

6-seeds: Saint Mary’s, Mississippi State, Georgia, Colgate

7-seeds: Penn State, Kentucky, Notre Dame, Marshall

8-seeds: Davidson, North Texas, Louisiana Tech UAB