Below is my bracket projections for this week. These will no longer be based strictly on merit rankings, and will instead be based on what we personally think the NCAA Tournament should look like if the season were to end today. It is not an attempt to guess what the real committee will do in March, nor is it an attempt to project what we think the real committee would do right now. This is simply entirely our own opinions.
I have some comments below, and other members of the staff may decide to comment as well. If they disagree with anything that I have done, then they are wrong and should not be listened to!!
OTHERS CONSIDERED: Dayton, Indiana, Oklahoma, UCLA, Duke, Drake, Alabama, Chattanooga, VCU, Davidson, Marshall, Saint Bonaventure, Arkansas, LSU, Arizona, Arizona State, Georgia, Florida, Washington State, East Carolina
COMMENTS FROM DAVID
-Things are obviously a lot different this year, and there are cases where we think teams are better than what their resume is showing, but that they haven’t had the opportunities to build their resumes due to games being postponed or cancelled. But, at the end of the day, this is still pretty much the same process. You look at what teams have done, and you rank them accordingly.
-New Mexico State and Vermont are two teams that are not in the bracket due to simply not having done enough, and that is simply due to not having played enough. I hope they’re able to get some good OOC games squeezed in between now and the end so they can grow their resumes.
-Northwestern on the 4 line would have seemed outrageous just over a week ago, but they’ve beaten Michigan State, Indiana, and Ohio State in the last eight days and are 5-1 overall. Yeah, that’s pretty 4-seedish.
-I don’t know if I think Kansas is better than Baylor, but I do know that when you look at the two profiles Kansas’s wins are stronger, so I have the Jayhawks higher on the seedlist and in as the Big 12 champion. This will obviously sort itself out by the end of the season since the two are in the same conference, but for now I just like Kansas a little bit more.
-Duke is not in the field. I think they will be there in March, but right now all they’ve done is…well…nothing.
STAFF COMMENTS
Jon Teitel:
West Region: could see a John Beilein game (West Virginia-Michigan) and a Gonzaga-USC game where the best player on the court is NOT a Zag (Evan Mobley)
East Region: could see a who-does-Chad-cheer-for game (Rutgers-GCU), a Matt Haarms revenge game (BYU-Purdue…in Indianapolis), and an old-school Big East game (UConn-Syracuse)
Midwest Region: could see a Wisconsin-Marquette rematch and Jeff Capel making the postseason for the 1st time since leading Oklahoma to the 2009 Elite 8
South Region: could see a battle of “mutual” companies (Northwestern-Liberty), a Lone Star showdown (Texas-Houston), and Missouri’s 1st #1 seed since 1994