Below is David Dorman’s personal staff bracket. If you don’t like it, then please direct all venom toward him!! If you DO like it, then…well…direct venom toward him anyway!!!
COMMENTS FROM DAVID DORMAN:
This is my first bracket of 2025 so let’s break it down.
-My bracket, along with every bracket you will find, is loaded with SEC teams. Pay very close attention to the SEC conference games the rest of the season. It will be very interesting to see what type of conference record it will take in SEC play to garner a tournament bid. With 18 conference games, will 8-10 be good enough? Could going 7-11 get a bid? The answer is maybe because of the unbalanced schedule and where your wins come from. Road wins get more attention than home wins do. Did you have to play the all conference heavy weights on the road? My advice to the SEC teams is hold serve at home and win 1 big road game and you will have a very solid seed in March.
My last 4 teams to get in were:
St. Mary’s
Iowa
Ohio State
Arkansas
Teams that just missed that I could make a case for:
Penn State
Missouri
SMU
Texas
-If Texas would have pulled off the huge comeback win against Auburn earlier this week they would have made my bracket. That would have been the feather in Texas’s cap that would have gone a long way.
-The Longhorns will have plenty of more opportunities but can’t help to think the game against Auburn slipped away in Austin.-
-If Northwestern out of the BIG 10 can string a few wins together they will be right in the mix as they sit squarely on the bubble today.
-Conference season is in full swing. Most teams out of conference games are over and the focus switches to winning a regular season conference title. Piling up wins in January is extremely important. Conference tournament seeding always comes down to 1-2 games here and there. Getting a bye or double bye in conference tournaments keeps your team fresh in March because most teams are not that deep. Most coaches will shorten their rotation at this point in the season and have 7-8 players getting a majority of the minutes.
-Keep an eye on the Missouri Valley Conference this year. It looked like Bradley was going to be the front runner but Drake went to Bradley this week and the Bulldogs walked out with a huge victory.
-How many bids will the Mountain West receive this year is a hot topic these days. Utah State looks great but Boise State, San Diego State and New Mexico will be contenders all season.
-In the Atlantic 10, I thought the Flyers were the team to beat but Dayton has gone cold at the wrong time. Look out for VCU, St. Louis, St. Bonnie and Loyola to make a push in the wide open A-10.
-Enjoy the conference season and the push to March everyone and thanks for always checking out Hoopshd.com
COMMENTS FROM THE STAFF:
From John Stalica
– Oregon had a brief slump at home with losses against UCLA and Illinois, but definitely made up some ground with a win at Ohio State last night. Michigan also scored big with a blowout loss that made Mount Cronin erupt after the game:
– I wonder how close teams like Georgetown and Villanova are to cracking Dorman’s field. Villanova is actually getting hot in the Big East and scored big with a home win against UConn (who also got a little unfairly punished on the seed list with the road loss). Georgetown would have been a shoo-in to make the field after a near-miss at Marquette, but the Hoyas are definitely not going to be a bottom-feeder in 2025.
– St. Bonaventure looked more like a team with a bloated record after a road loss at Saint Louis earlier in the week. Dayton certainly had a bad week, but they’re still going to get credit for their wins against UConn and Marquette. Perhaps Dorman adheres to Chad Sherwood’s First Commandment of good teams winning close games.
– Texas Tech was a team I was not high on last week, but winning at BYU does absolve a few sins on their profile.
From Chad:
– I have very little to argue with on the top half of Dorman’s bracket. I agree with every selection and, other than maybe a one seed line disagreement here and there, pretty much agree with his selections.
– In the preseason, I said Maryland would be an NCAA Tournament team and was almost ridiculed by the rest of the HoopsHD staff. So of course, I now have to disagree with Dorman’s inclusion of the Terps on the 9 line. I actually would have them just barely out of the field today. The 4-point loss last time out at Oregon was not that big of a deal, but losing at Washington was. The Terps only have two wins in the top two tiers and neither is that great of a win (Ohio State home, neutral Villanova).
– I also would have Indiana just barely out of the field. The Hoosiers do not have a bad loss, but have only beaten one team that is even in consideration for a bid, their recent road win at Penn State. I need a few more wins against the top two quadrants to be on board with this team.
– I think UCF is being overlooked by a lot of people. It seemed that everyone liked this team until Kansas beat them by 3 million points, then everyone wrote them off completely. At the end of the day, it was only one game. And the Knights bounced back from it to defeat Colorado a couple nights ago. This team has no bad losses and two Tier 1A wins (Texas A&M home and Texas Tech road). That is better than a lot of other teams right at the cut line.
– The one other team that I would have in is UC-San Diego. I know Dorman chose UC-Irvine as his Big West champion — but I think if the Anteaters did get that auto bid, there is a strong case for a two-big Big West. UCSD is 14-2 and has a VERY good win at Utah State. Head coach Eric Olen should be a candidate for national coach of the year in my opinion. I would personally have the Tritons as the auto bid winner out of the Big West — and probably playing in an 8/9 game right now!
