FRIDAY SUMMARY
New Conference leaders today represented below as Automatic Bids:
Big West - UC Santa Barbara (Highest Remaining Seed)
WAC - Southern Utah (Highest Remaining Seed)
Penn State appears to be safer than ever before with its trip to the B1G Semifinal round today. Nittany Lions picked up a win over Northwestern last night that continues to move them well inside the bubble.
Perhaps a new one-seed surprise coming tomorrow afternoon?
Tennessee lost to Missouri yet again, and there is more concern about how the committee might view the Vols, meanwhile the Tigers move up the board.
Duke has been on a mission this week. Notable win over Miami yesterday, and the most difficult team to seed right now. Giving the Blue Devils the benefit of the doubt with this committee.
Indiana, UConn, and Xavier are all making a case this week to move to the final three-seed spot. Going with the Hoosiers here initially. UConn did end up falling to Marquette last night. The Golden Eagles are knocking on the door of a 2-seed, along with Gonzaga.
The three toughest teams to keep in the field are NC State, Rutgers, and Providence. You’ll notice Pittsburgh is in the projected Dayton (First Four) field, however, the Panthers have a significantly better road resume mixed with better a win pct. in certain areas of the breakdown (namely when Q4 is removed, although Pitt has a Q4 loss to Florida State).
Oklahoma State, Nevada, and Vanderbilt are just outside the field this morning. With the Commodores being the obvious team to monitor.
Southern Utah rallied from down 23 points last night to earn a trip to the title game. It took some help from Utah Valley to miss six straight foul shots, and also this ridiculous four-point play by Tevian Jones:
BRACKET
Bracket projections are based on the 2022-23 NCAA Committee Principles and Selection Process. Projected Conference Champions are based on projected Auto-Bid winners.
Forecasted At-Large Bids Stolen: 0 (Highly Unlikely, Annual Average = 2.3 Bids taken)
FIRST FOUR OUT:
Oklahoma State
Nevada
Vanderbilt
Wisconsin
NEXT FOUR OUT:
North Texas
Oregon
North Carolina
New Mexico
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