Every year around this time, I officially transition from college football fanaticism to college basketball fanaticism, and I begin working on my annual NCAA and NIT tournament bracket projections. This year is no different, as I have now completed my initial NCAA and NIT bracket projections for the 2023 tournament., and for the 14th consecutive season, this column will become the staple of my blog from now until Selection Sunday.   Brad-ketology is a little different than other NCAA bracket projections in that it is much more expansive, as it also includes the NIT field and NIT bubble.  Furthermore, it is one of the columns used in the nationally-recognized bracket project which seeds NCAA teams by taking an average of the most prominent bracket projections in the country.

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 a couple of reasons 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 at-large bid to the NIT.

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 Monday January 16th. 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, Kansas, UConn, Houston

2-seeds:  Arizona, North Carolina, Tennessee, Wisconsin

3-seeds: Duke, Baylor, Dayton, Auburn

4-seeds: Marquette, Creighton, Kentucky, Illinois

5-seeds: Memphis, Clemson, Alabama, Iowa State

6-seeds: Brigham Young, Utah State, Utah, Villanova

7-seeds: Florida Atlantic, San Diego State, St. John’s, TCU

8-seeds: Oklahoma, Colorado State, Texas A & M, Mississippi State

9-seeds: Texas Tech, Boise State, Nebraska, Nevada

10-seeds: Oregon, Miami-FL, Michigan State, Saint Mary’s

11-seeds: Providence, Wake Forest, Cincinnati, Seton Hall, Northwestern, South Carolina

12-seeds: Princeton, Grand Canyon, Indiana State, James Madison

13-seeds: McNeese State, UC Irvine, Akron, Samford

14-seeds: Drexel, Louisiana Tech, Oakland, UMass-Lowell

15-seeds: Eastern Washington, Winthrop, Saint Peter’s, Western Illinois

16-seeds: Central Connecticut, Jackson State, Eastern Kentucky, North Carolina Central, Omaha, Lafayette

NIT Tourney Field:

1-seeds: Virginia Tech, Princeton, Ole Miss, New Mexico

2-seeds: Colorado, Xavier, Washington State, Ohio State

3-seeds: Grand Canyon, Florida, Indiana State, Washington

4-seeds: Drake, Butler, Virginia, Texas

5-seeds: Iowa, James Madison, Gonzaga, Kansas State

6-seeds: SMU, NC State, San Francisco, Georgia

7-seeds: UCF, Appalachian State, Florida State, LSU

8-seeds: Syracuse, Indiana, Boston College, Minnesota

First Four Out of NIT: Pittsburgh, Maryland, North Texas, Rutgers