Bracket Projections: December 26th

For Chad’s UTR Game of the Day between Morgan State and Loyola Marymount – CLICK HERE

For Jon Teitel’s interview with Ben Byrd (re: Bernard King) – CLICK HERE.

We at HoopsHD hope you had a wonderful holiday weekend, and with the weekend coming to an end, we have the latest checkpoint bracket from our colleague John Stalica.

JOHN’S NOTES

One slight change this week is that I now have Villanova as the #1 overall seed – I’ve given them a slight edge over Baylor after re-evaluating both profiles. My order of the four #1s will be Nova, Baylor, UCLA and Kansas.

It took a little imagination, but I was able to find a way to keep most of the top 16 seeds reasonably close to their natural regions and still maintain balance among the 4 regions. (After all, it is unofficially legislated that Duke has play in both North South Carolina and New York/New Jersey in their bracket.)

It is also permissible to have North Carolina and Virginia Tech paired up for a potential Round 2 matchup for now – their only scheduled matchup this year takes place in Chapel Hill.

There were 2 bracketing shifts that took place. One is that Temple (#37 on my seed list) traded places with Michigan (#36 on the seed list), although Michigan’s upside here is that they get to start in Indy and get a more manageable draw. The second one is that the First Four game in Sacramento was moved down from the 11-line because of bracketing considerations. I had UNC-Wilmington and Wichita State seeded below the First Four, but they at least get 11 seeds and a legitimate chance to make some noise if those draws were to come to fruition.

NOTES FROM DAVID

-I agree with the #1 seeds as far as the paper goes, but I do think Duke will ultimately play their way up there, and maybe end up as the overall #1.  They have just one loss on the year, and it was a close game to Kansas without three of their key players.

-I also really like Butler’s profile and would easily have them 0n the #2 line at this point.  I realize that we’re splitting hairs this early in the season, but with wins over Indiana and Notre Dame away from home, and another against Cincinnati at home, and others against Northwestern and at Utah, that is an outstanding profile.

-Northwestern on the #7 line may seem a bit high, but I really like this Northwestern team and although I personally wouldn’t have them as high as the #7 line, I can easily see how a case could be made to put them there.

-I’m not seeing it with Minnesota.  I know they have a bloated record, but for the most part it has come against a pastry cart.  Of their 12 wins, 11 have been at home and 9 have been in buy games.  The ones that weren’t were against Saint John’s and Vandy.  That’s not all that hard to do.

-I really do like this Texas Arlington team that isn’t even inside his bubble.  Six of their last seven games have been true road games, and they’ve won them all, including a win at Saint Mary’s.  They also won at Texas, and although Texas has struggled, that is still the only home loss for the Longhorns.  Now to be fair one of their losses was at Minnesota, but I still think that overall UTA has a much better profile than Minney.

-Middle Tennessee really blew it this week, but I’d still have them inside the bubble as well.

-I definitely agree with Clemson being where they are after their big win at South Carolina.