MID-WEEK NOTES
Florida’s loss to Georgia in Athens began the process of separting the elite six teams with 1-seed worthy resumes. The Gators still have terrific overall power numbers, but are the 6th team overall in resume, despite owning the best win in the country at Auburn. Alabama, Houston, and Tennessee each slid up one place to allow the Cougars to land as a 1-seed for the first time this season.
Sometimes having an easy win can be the best recipe. It paid off for Wisconsin, which destroyed poor Washington and watched Iowa State and Texas A&M suffer rough losses. The Cyclones were stunned at Oklahoma State, sinking them to a 4-seed for the first time all year. Texas A&M took a home loss to Vanderbilt, which isn’t ideal but at least Vandy is a clear tournament team now. The carnage yielded the Badgers back up to a 2-seed.
Missouri was able to finally breakthrough as a 4-seed, thanks to a four-game losing streak from Purdue and a 30-point win over South Carolina.
Louisville was a surprise leap to a 6-seed today, earning the 24th overall spot. The Cardinals do not have a ton of upper-echelon wins, but the style-points combined with a lack of losses are adding up.
For the first time this year, Baylor is excluded from the forecast. A warning was issued last week, but the Bears did not do anything to improve matters, losing once again at Cincinnati. The Bears are now 10-12 when you remove Q4 results (aka easy wins). To make matters worse, Josh Ojianwuna is out for the season. I believe this will be discussed among the committee. The Bears are 1-4 without him so far, an OT home win over bubbly West Virginia. BU has lost road games to Colorado and Cincinnati without him in this stretch. The good news is they host Oklahoma State tomorrow, which should help them get on track. Finishing at TCU (Frogs already won in Waco) and hosting Houston, will require another win as well. Dicey.
The ACC bubble is a mess. We have SMU, UNC, and/or Wake Forest. The Deacs of course lost at home to Virginia. WF’s third bad loss this month. It’s tough to stomach. SMU won at California and continues to hang around with a wildly good 10-2 record away from home. North Carolina has started to pick up some wins but remains 1-10 in their 11 hardest games and has the home Stanford loss to deal with. I do think one of these three will find its way into the field. We all know who the committee chairman is, and I will leave it at that.
Boise State and San Francisco provide interesting options, but I'm not convinced about either one quite yet. Boise State is playing much better and picking up NCAA-level wins, just defeating Utah State rather handily. San Francisco, of course, beat Boise State in a home game earlier in the season. The Dons also beat Saint Mary’s and just got a solid road win at Oregon State. Before the Dons' loss, the Beavers had only lost at home to Oregon and Saint Mary’s.
Georgia is a road win and an overall win short of being included. There is no precedent for including a team with only one road win (at Georgia Tech) or a losing record (9-11) in meaningful games. The Bulldogs finish with at Texas, at South Carolina, and home Vanderbilt. So the bid is right there for them to snatch long-term.
FIELDING THE 68 SHOW LIVE
Several layers of bracket talk are coming soon! I’ll be on to discuss more teams and the overall tournament picture.
Begins Live February 28th at 5PM ET. Link will work for re-watching purposes as well. The panel, including me, will focus on mid-week changes and the bubble on today’s episode.
BRACKET
Bracket projections are based on the 2024-25 NCAA Committee Principles and Selection Process. Projected Conference Champions are based on which team has the inside track to the top seed within its conference tournament.
Forecasted At-Large Bids Stolen: 0 (Highly Unlikely): The Annual Average = 2.4 Bids taken per year.
FIRST FOUR OUT: San Francisco, Baylor, Georgia, George Mason
NEXT TEAMS OUT: North Carolina, UC Irvine, Wake Forest, Cincinnati
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