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 Sunday February 5th.
NCAA Tourney Field:
1-seeds: Kentucky, Syracuse, Ohio State, North Carolina
2-seeds: Baylor, Missouri, Georgetown, Duke
3-seeds: Florida, Michigan State, Kansas, Marquette
4-seeds: Louisville, Saint Mary’s, Indiana, San Diego State
5-seeds: Creighton, UNLV, Murray State, Mississippi State
6-seeds: Michigan, Gonzaga, Wisconsin, Florida State
7-seeds: Kansas State, Virginia, Vanderbilt, West Virginia
8-seeds: Temple, Harvard, Connecticut, Wichita State
9-seeds: Illinois, Alabama, Iowa State, Southern Miss
10-seeds: California, Purdue, Notre Dame, Cincinnati
11-seeds: Seton Hall, New Mexico, Memphis, Xavier
12-seeds: Saint Louis, Minnesota, Brigham Young, NC State, Colorado State, Arkansas
13-seeds: Long Beach State, Iona, Oral Roberts, Davidson
14-seeds: Middle Tennessee, Akron, Cleveland State, Nevada
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: Northwestern, Central Florida, Texas, Dayton
2-seeds: Miami-FL, Oklahoma, Washington, Wyoming
3-seeds: Colorado, Oregon, Stanford, Ole Miss
4-seeds: Arizona, New Mexico State, Ohio, Marshall
5-seeds: La Salle, UMass, Pittsburgh, Northern Iowa
6-seeds: St. Joe’s, South Dakota State, LSU, Loyola-MD
7-seeds: South Florida, Maryland, Virginia Tech, Drexel
8-seeds: Missouri State, St. Bonaventure, Wagner, Valpo
Ranking of Other Postseason Contenders: George Mason, Duquesne, Buffalo, Iowa, Texas A & M
