Ramblings from the Ultimate Sports Sentimentalist

The teams below are displayed below on an S-curve, so they are ranked from left to right within each seeding line.  The italicized teams are ones predicted to win their conference tourney and gain an automatic bid to the dance.  For the conferences who currently have NCAA tourney teams, it is assumed that one of those teams will win their conference tourney.  If not, then a stolen bid would result, and the number of at-large bids would drop.

Also, just to clarify, my bracket projection is intended to project the NCAA Tournament field if it was chosen today.  Unlike some bracketologists, I am not trying to predict how each team will finish the season and then seed the teams based on that.  There is one slight exception to this rule, however, and that is that I have always chosen to award the projected automatic bid for each conference to my projected best team in that conference, and not the team who is currently leading the conference standings.   Given how unbalanced conference schedules are, it just seems like common sense to project that the best team in a conference will win the league championship, not the squad currently in first place.

Brad-ketology columns will be published at least twice a week (typically on Mondays and Fridays) and more often than that when it gets closer to tourney time.  This bracket projection has been updated through all games played on Thursday February 9th.

NCAA Tourney Field:

1-seeds: Kentucky, Syracuse, Missouri, Ohio State

2-seeds: Baylor, Duke, North Carolina, Kansas

3-seeds: Georgetown, Michigan State, Marquette, Florida

4-seeds: Louisville, UNLV, Indiana, Wisconsin

5-seeds: San Diego State, Michigan, Saint Mary’s, Creighton

6-seeds: Gonzaga, Mississippi State, Vanderbilt, Kansas State

7-seeds: Temple, Virginia, Harvard, Florida State

8-seeds: Wichita State, Alabama, Murray State, Notre Dame

9-seeds: Connecticut, West Virginia, Illinois, Seton Hall

10-seeds: Cincinnati, Iowa State, Purdue, Southern Miss

11-seeds: New Mexico, Memphis, California, Xavier

12-seeds: Saint Louis, Brigham Young, Minnesota, NC State, Colorado State, Northwestern

13-seeds: Long Beach State, Iona, Oral Roberts, Davidson

14-seeds: Middle Tennessee, Akron, Nevada, Cleveland State

15-seeds: VCU, Belmont, Bucknell, Weber State

16-seeds: UNC-Asheville, LIU-Brooklyn, Norfolk State, UT-Arlington, Stony Brook, Mississippi Valley State

NIT Tourney Field:

1-seeds: Texas, Dayton, Wyoming, Miami-FL

2-seeds: Arkansas, Ole Miss, Oregon, Central Florida

3-seeds: Washington, Arizona, Colorado, Stanford

4-seeds: Oklahoma, New Mexico State, UMass, Marshall

5-seeds: Drexel, Pittsburgh, St. Joe’s, Valpo

6-seeds: Loyola-MD, La Salle, Ohio, Northern Iowa

7-seeds: LSU, South Florida, Maryland, South Dakota State

8-seeds: Missouri State, Wagner, George Mason, Virginia Tech

First Four out of NIT: Duquesne, St. Bonaventure, Buffalo, Iowa