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. You may also notice that some teams are listed in both the NCAA and NIT fields. 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. There are several reasons reason these teams are displayed like this.. 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. Finally, there will inevitably be 6-8 regular season mid-major conference champions that lose their conference tourney and earn an NIT automatic bid, so by going ahead and adding 6-8 teams that may later get removed, we end up with an NIT cut line that is more representative of what it will actually look like on Selection Sunday.

Moreover, 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 the 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. 

This bracket projection has been updated through all games played on Sunday February 5th. Brad-ketology columns will typically be published twice a week (typically on Mondays and Fridays) and likely more often than that when it gets closer to tourney time. Please feel free to comment or debate.

NCAA Tourney Field:

1-seeds: Purdue, Alabama, Arizona, Texas

2-seeds: Tennessee, UCLA, Houston, Kansas

3-seeds: Virginia, Iowa State, Xavier, Kansas State

4-seeds:  TCU, Marquette, Baylor, Gonzaga

5-seeds: Indiana, UConn, Saint Mary’s, Duke

6-seeds: Rutgers, Iowa, Illinois, Providence

7-seeds: Auburn, Maryland, Michigan State, Miami-FL

8-seeds: NC State, Creighton, Arkansas, San Diego State

9-seeds: Florida Atlantic, North Carolina, Boise State, West Virginia

10-seeds: Nevada, New Mexico, Missouri, Northwestern

11-seeds: Pittsburgh, Southern Cal, Memphis, Oklahoma State, Kentucky, Texas A & M

12-seeds: Sam Houston State, College of Charleston, Oral Roberts, Southern Miss

13-seeds: Liberty, VCU, Kent State, Drake

14-seeds: Yale, Iona, Furman, UC Santa Barbara

15-seeds: Colgate, Youngstown State, Eastern Washington, Northwestern State

16-seeds: Vermont, UNC Asheville, Maryland Eastern Shore, Alcorn State, Morehead State, Fairleigh Dickinson

NIT Tourney Field:

1-seeds: Clemson, Utah State, Virginia Tech, Seton Hall

2-seeds: Mississippi State, Florida, Oregon, Wisconsin

3-seeds: Ohio State, Oklahoma, Arizona State, Penn State

4-seeds: Michigan, Utah, Wake Forest, Sam Houston State

5-seeds: North Texas, College of Charleston, Oral Roberts, Southern Miss

6-seeds: UCF, Liberty, Cincinnati, VCU

7-seeds: Colorado, Texas Tech, UNLV, Kent State

8-seeds: Utah Valley, Drake, Dayton, Marshall

Ranking of Other Postseason Contenders: Saint Louis, Tulane, Syracuse, Brigham Young, St. John’s