BRACKET NOTES
- As always, teams are selected, seeded, and bracketed as if today was Selection Sunday.
- There is not a ton separating West Virginia, Tennessee and the teams in-between. With West Virginia coming in as the final 3-seed and Tennessee as the top 5-seed, that’s a tough gap if you’re a Vols supporter. In general, with less games on the schedule this season - each individual result against quality competition will cause more ripple effect on resumes than ever before. I believe it will cause a surplus of chaotic scenarios by March. Let’s beg to the heavens that we get a full Championship Week played.
- The final 5-seed choice was excruciatingly difficult for me. Oklahoma State held on to it, mainly because of their high-leverage win in Lubbock. But if the committee decided to not treat road wins as heavily this year, the Cowboys could slide considerably. If you check out our Inside The Bracket page, you’ll see an accurate visual of the “In Safely” teams. Not much is separating 20th thru 31st on the Seed List.
- Oregon is a team dealing with major Covid isssues. Both LJ Figueroa and Chris Duarte were absent for the loss against rival Oregon State. How much will the committee look at that? For today, we treat this at face value and the Ducks slipped to a 10-seed.
- Three of the last four bids were not as difficult as I thought they would be. LSU, St. Bonaventure and Arkansas had clean enough profiles to stand out above the remaining bubble. However, that final selection was fairly brutal. I made the tough decision to exclude Maryland because they are not two games over .500 yet in D1 competition. That will be the biggest obstacle the rest of the way for the Terps. If Maryland is able to get above the two games above .500 threshold, they will be in and probably seeded much higher than a first four particpant. For today, Colorado State gets in.
- Projected Automatic Bid anomalies: New Mexico State and Howard were my preseason picks to win their conference. Sadly, neither team has been able to get back on the court yet for a conference game. Stubbornly, they remain in the bracket as projected WAC and MEAC tournament champions respectively, until they lose at least once in conference.
New Conference leaders today represented below as Automatic Bids:
ASUN - Liberty
SoCon - Wofford
West Virginia came back from a 14-day break recently to win twice in three days. Critical win over Texas Tech last night.
Bracket projections are based on 2020-21 NCAA Committee Principles and Selection Process. Projected Conference Champions are based on projected Auto-Bid winners.
At-Large Bids Stolen: 0 (Highly Unlikely)
FIRST FOUR TEAMS OUT: Pittsburgh, Maryland, Loyola-Chicago, Marquette
NEXT FOUR TEAMS OUT: Western Kentucky, Providence, Georgia Tech, Utah State
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