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 tourney and also in my list of “First Teams Out” of the Dance. These are teams predicted to be automatic qualifiers to the NCAA tournament who also would be in contention for an NCAA tourney at-large bid (but are currently just outside of the cut line) if they were to falter in their respective confernece tourneys. I dispaly these particular teams like this becuase it shows how close each of those squad would be to getting a potential at-large bid into the NCAA tournament field.

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 (for example McNeese State is listed as the projected Soutland Conference champion instead of first place Stephen F. Austin).  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 Thursday February 26th. 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: Duke, Michigan, Arizona, UConn

2-seeds:  Iowa State, Illinois, Houston, Florida

3-seeds: Michigan State, Purdue, Nebraska, Gonzaga

4-seeds: Kansas, Texas Tech, Virginia, Vanderbilt

5-seeds: Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina,

6-seeds: BYU, Louisville, St. John’s, UCF

7-seeds: Kentucky, Villanova, Saint Louis, Wisconsin

8-seeds: Utah State, Iowa, Miami-FL, Clemson

9-seeds: NC State, Missouri, Saint Mary’s, UCLA

10-seeds: Georgia, SMU, Texas A & M, Texas

11-seeds: Auburn, Miami-OH, Santa Clara, TCU, VCU, San Diego State

12-seeds: South Florida, Belmont, McNeese State, Yale

13-seeds: High Point, Utah Valley, Liberty, UNC-Wilmington

14-seeds: Hawaii, Navy, North Dakota State, Austin Peay

15-seeds: East Tennessee State, Merrimack, Portland State, South Alabama

16-seeds: Wright State, Long Island, Howard, Tennessee State, UMBC, Bethune-Cookman

NIT/College Basketball Crown Teams (in order of proximity to NCAA tourney at-large field):

1	New Mexico (20-7)
2	Virginia Tech (18-10)
3	Indiana (17-11)
4	California (19-8)
5	Ohio State (17-11)
6	Seton Hall (19-9)
7	Southern Cal (17-10)
8	South Florida (19-8)
9	Cincinnati (15-13)
10	Belmont (25-4)
11	West Virginia (16-12)
12	McNeese State (22-5)
13	Tulsa (21-6)
14	Yale (19-4)