Monday brought us the first of many amazing mid-major tournament championships. For the most part, they won’t impact the bracket too much, but these teams work so hard to get these bids that the conference tournaments are always amazing to watch. However, Monday’s mid-major tournament action did cause one change to the bubble.
We will start at the top and work through some of the key points that led to the shape of this bracket.
No changes at the top of the bracket, UConn won a 24th Big East tournament title on Monday and will enter the NCAA tournament undefeated.
No changes in the Top 16 either.
Welcome to the field the Richmond Spiders. Fairfield’s win over Quinnipiac in the MAAC championship gave the Stags the automatic qualifier and created an opening on the right side of the bubble. The Spiders will now cross their fingers that Princeton wins the Ivy League and there are no bid stealers.
The biggest beneficiaries of Monday’s results were Richmond, Fairfield, and James Madison. The Spiders are in the projected field after Fairfield beat Quinnipiac. The Stags won the MAAC and now don’t have to sweat out Selection Sunday. The Dukes won the Sun Belt as the No. 4 seed and will go back to the big dance after missing it a year ago.
Tuesday’s Games with the greatest impact on the bracket
- Green Bay vs Youngstown State, Horizon League Championship
- Gonzaga vs Oregon State, WCC Championship
- Colorado State vs Air Force, Mountain West Championship
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 did not have to do that with this bracket.
Bracket breakdown
Multi-Bid conferences
- Big Ten: 12
- SEC: 10
- ACC: 9
- Big 12: 8
- Big East: 2
- Atlantic 10: 2
Last four in:
- Virginia
- Nebraska
- Arizona State
- Richmond
First four out:
- BYU
- North Dakota State
- Utah
- Mississippi State
Next four out:
- Stanford
- Kansas State
- Texas A&M
- Indiana
Next Update: March 11th
