Bracketology 03.11.23

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?

Committee chair Chris Reynolds told me earlier tonight that 6 or 7 teams are being considered for the 1 seed. Texas/UCLA/Purdue all still alive in their tourneys, be interesting to see the last 1 seed come Sunday as well #marchmadness2023

— Jason Horowitz (@HorowitzJason) March 11, 2023

• 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:

#WACvegas | Semifinal@SUUBasketball Tevian Jones hits the three and gets the foul with :04! The Thunderbirds come back from a 23-point deficit with 15:42 to win in semis !!#SCtop10 @ESPNAssignDesk pic.twitter.com/ZjNsnc06Eb

— The Western Athletic Conference (@WACsports) March 11, 2023

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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