Friday was our last day with just one conference championship game. In it, Vermont dominated Maine to win the America East and punch its ticket to the NCAA tournament.
We also saw not one, but two No. 1 seeds lose in their conference semifinals Friday. Both UC Irvine and Alabama A&M lost, which opened two spots for new automatic qualifiers out of the Big West and SWAC.
We will see eight conference champions crowned on Saturday as we are just a day away from Selection Sunday.
We will start at the top and work through some of the key points that led to the shape of this bracket:
Once again, we had some changes at the bottom of the bracket. UC Irvine, which was a projected No. 13 seed, and Alabama A&M, a projected No. 16 seed, both fell in their conference tournaments.
This added UC San Diego and Alabama State to the field, who are projected as No. 15 and 16 seeds, respectively. We also had Vermont win the America East for the second straight year.
The biggest beneficiaries of Friday’s results were Vermont, UC San Diego, and Alabama State. Vermont dominated its championship game en route to its second straight NCAA tournament appearance. UC San Diego and Alabama State both won their respective semifinal matchups and will have a chance to punch their ticket to the big dance tomorrow.
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Saturday games with the greatest impact on the bracket
- MAC Championship: Miami (OH) vs Toledo
- SWAC Championship: Alabama State vs Southern
- WAC Championship: Cal Baptist vs Abilene Christian
- MEAC Championship: Howard vs Norfolk State
- C-USA Championship: Louisiana Tech vs Missouri State
- Ivy League Championship: Princeton vs Harvard
- Big West Championship: UC San Diego vs Hawaii
- American Championship: Rice vs UTSA
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.
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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 15th
