It’s hard to believe, but the last week of February is here. Most teams only have a few opportunities left to build up their resume, and it will be chaos between now and Selection Sunday. Everyone will be jockeying for position, and the games will come fast and furious once conference tournaments start. Ahead of the madness, let’s take a look at this week’s bracket projection.
We will start at the top and work through some of the key points that led to the shape of this bracket:
The top four overall seeds remained unchanged. The Commodores remain right on the heels of the Longhorns, but Texas’s nine Quad 1 wins and third-best WAB ranking keep them ahead of Vanderbilt for now. It may require a rematch in the SEC tournament to settle who gets the final No. 1 seed.
We had no changes in our last few hosting spots this week. Despite Kentucky losing its only game of the week, a two-point defeat at Vanderbilt, the Wildcats have a stronger resume overall compared to West Virginia and Baylor. The Mountaineers have fewer Quad 1 wins than Kentucky, and Baylor’s NET ranking is down at 30, compared to 16 for the Wildcats.
The bubble this week didn’t change in terms of any new teams popping in, but who has to play in the first four saw a lot of movement. Clemson and Virginia picked up massive wins for their tournament resumes after they each beat one of the ACC frontrunners. Their success pushed both Mississippi State and Virginia Tech into the last four in the group. Stanford and Arizona State didn’t improve their resume enough to get them back into the field. Also, the Atlantic 10’s hope of having multiple teams in the field was severely hurt after both Rhode Island and Richmond took losses last week to middle-tier conference foes.
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The biggest riser in the bracket over the past week was Minnesota. I talked about them a few weeks ago, but the Gophers have been on fire over the past four weeks. They suffered their first loss in over a month on Sunday, but had rattled off nine straight wins before that. They have improved their position all the way to a No. 5 seed and have a chance, with a win or two in the conference tournament, to grab one of those coveted hosting spots.
The biggest faller of the week was Tennessee. The Volunteers have had a rough go of it since their 6-0 start to SEC play. They have lost seven of their last nine games, including a bad loss this past week against Texas A&M at home. Their NET is high, and they have a solid amount of quality wins, so they aren’t at risk of missing the tournament. However, they went from vying for a hosting spot to trying to avoid the dreaded eight-nine game.
Five power conference games that will have the greatest impact on the bracket over the next week:
Oklahoma St vs Iowa St, Feb 25
Michigan vs Maryland, Feb 28
South Carolina vs Kentucky, Mar 1
Vanderbilt vs Tennessee, Mar 1
Virginia vs Virginia Tech, Mar 1
Two mid-major games that will most impact the bracket over the next week:
Richmond vs Rhode Island, Feb 25
South Dakota St vs North Dakota St, Feb 26
Bracketology methodology
Here are some basic bracket rules that help influence my bracket:
- The top four seed lines in each region shall be from different conferences unless a conference has more than four teams in the top 16 (making this rule impossible to follow, as is the case with the SEC and Big 10 in my bracket).
- Teams from the same conference shall not be projected to meet until the Elite Eight if they met three times during the regular season, or the Sweet 16 if they met twice. Because we don’t know what will happen in conference tournaments, I am assuming every conference team will face each other one more time than what is on their schedule. I was able to keep conference teams apart until the Elite Eight.
- In order to comply with bracket rules, it is acceptable to move a team up or down one seed line. I had to move Clemson up to a No 9 seed and Nebraska to a No 10 seed to comply with the rules.
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Bracket breakdown:
Multi-Bid conferences:
Big Ten: 12
SEC: 11
ACC: 9
Big 12: 7
Big East: 2
Ivy League: 2
Last four in:
Virginia Tech
Mississippi St
Princeton
Colorado
First four out:
Stanford
Arizona State
Fairfield
Utah
Next four out:
South Dakota State
Richmond
Kansas
Miami
Next Update: March 4th