The regular season clock is ticking in college basketball and the chances for teams to make their cases for NCAA Tournament inclusion is winding down. Who is sweating it out in bracketology? The Hoos?
My bracket is part of the bracket matrix under entry RWX and can be viewed here. It is my 7th year doing a bracket and you can see my ranking here. Last year I finished tied for 4th for the most accurate bracket! I’m sharing my bracketology here on TheSabre.com. Discuss it on the message board. This bracket release focuses on where teams stand as of 12 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 26.
For Sabre fans, it wasn’t the result any Wahoo wanted Saturday, but UVA did keep it competitive enough to not be hurt too badly. It also helped that very few bubbly teams helped themselves this weekend either. Thus Virginia is my 3rd 10 seed at this moment, 6 teams deep in the field.
In my opinion, for the Hoos to make it to the dance, they need to win 2 of their final 3 games and avoid a bad loss in the ACC Tournament (to a team outside the top 100). So if UVA beats Boston College on Wednesday, doesn’t get annihilated by Duke on Saturday, and then tops Georgia Tech to end the season, I think it will be 5 or 6 teams in the field heading into the conference tournaments and likely safe unless something really bad happened (bad loss, really bad blowout, lots of Cinderella’s).
Losing to BC and Duke and beating GT would likely leave Virginia as one of the last teams in or out, meaning there would be work to do in the conference tournament. Likely at least 1 quality win would be necessary if not 2 to get in with that scenario. Losing out would likely require winning the ACC Tournament to get in or at minimum a trip to the finals with the right combo of wins. So let’s beat BC to remove some of the bubble concerns.
Here’s the full bracketology for this update.
| Seed | Power | Team | Seed |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | Purdue* | 1 |
| 1 | 2 | Houston* | 1 |
| 1 | 3 | UConn* | 1 |
| 1 | 4 | Arizona* | 1 |
| 2 | 5 | North Carolina* | 2 |
| 2 | 6 | Tennessee* | 2 |
| 2 | 7 | Marquette | 2 |
| 2 | 8 | Kansas | 2 |
| 3 | 9 | Iowa St. | 3 |
| 3 | 10 | Duke | 3 |
| 3 | 11 | Alabama | 3 |
| 3 | 12 | Baylor | 3 |
| 4 | 13 | San Diego St. | 4 |
| 4 | 14 | Auburn | 4 |
| 4 | 15 | Creighton | 4 |
| 4 | 16 | Illinois | 4 |
| 5 | 17 | Wisconsin | 5 |
| 5 | 18 | Clemson | 5 |
| 5 | 19 | Kentucky | 5 |
| 5 | 20 | Dayton | 5 |
| 6 | 21 | Utah St.* | 6 |
| 6 | 22 | Saint Mary's (CA)* | 6 |
| 6 | 23 | Texas Tech | 6 |
| 6 | 24 | Washington St. | 6 |
| 7 | 25 | South Carolina | 7 |
| 7 | 26 | Florida | 7 |
| 7 | 27 | BYU | 7 |
| 7 | 28 | Colorado St. | 7 |
| 8 | 29 | Oklahoma | 8 |
| 8 | 30 | Northwestern | 8 |
| 8 | 31 | TCU | 8 |
| 8 | 32 | Nebraska | 8 |
| 9 | 33 | Mississippi St. | 9 |
| 9 | 34 | Michigan St. | 9 |
| 9 | 35 | Boise St. | 9 |
| 9 | 36 | Fla. Atlantic | 9 |
| 10 | 37 | Nevada | 10 |
| 10 | 38 | New Mexico | 10 |
| 10 | 39 | Virginia | 10 |
| 10 | 40 | Texas | 10 |
| 11a | 41 | Providence | 11a |
| 11b | 42 | Wake Forest | 11b |
| 11c | 43 | Seton Hall | 11c |
| 11d | 44 | Utah | 11d |
| 11 | 45 | Indiana St.* | 11 |
| 11 | 46 | Princeton* | 11 |
| 12 | 47 | Grand Canyon* | 12 |
| 12 | 48 | Richmond* | 12 |
| 12 | 49 | South Fla.* | 12 |
| 12 | 50 | McNeese* | 12 |
| 13 | 51 | App State* | 13 |
| 13 | 52 | Samford* | 13 |
| 13 | 53 | Akron* | 13 |
| 13 | 54 | Louisiana Tech* | 13 |
| 14 | 55 | UC Irvine* | 14 |
| 14 | 56 | Vermont* | 14 |
| 14 | 57 | Col. of Charleston* | 14 |
| 14 | 58 | Oakland* | 14 |
| 15 | 59 | High Point* | 15 |
| 15 | 60 | Eastern Washington* | 15 |
| 15 | 61 | Morehead St.* | 15 |
| 15 | 62 | Colgate* | 15 |
| 16 | 63 | Fairfield* | 16 |
| 16 | 64 | South Dakota St.* | 16 |
| 16a | 65 | Eastern Kentucky* | 16a |
| 16a | 66 | Norfolk St.* | 16a |
| 16b | 67 | Merrimack* | 16b |
| 16b | 68 | Grambling St.* | 16b |
- Last Four In: Utah, Seton Hall, Wake Forest, Providence
- First Four Out: Gonzaga, Colorado, Ole Miss, Pittsburgh
- Next Four Out: St. Johns, Kansas St., Butler, Villanova
When you look at the rest of the bracket, the battle for the last No. 1 seed between Arizona and UNC is tight. Barring a collapse, the top 3 teams Purdue, Houston, and UConn all look like locks for 1 seeds, but the battle for the last one could go down to the wire. Tennessee, Marquette, and Kansas could all get into the mix for that too with Arizona and UNC.
This weekend was not a good one for bubble teams as most teams just outside the bracket lost. Gonzaga keeps winning, but the resume is what it is and beating up on Q3/Q4 games may improve your NET rating, but it isn’t really improving their case. But now they finish their season with two straight road games at San Francisco and St. Mary’s, which are both Q1 opportunities. A split of those two and avoiding a bad loss in the WCC Tournament will have them right there around the bottom of the bubble. I wouldn’t say lock but with a decent chance to get in.
The Big East bubble, meanwhile, is a mess with Providence, Seton Hall, St. Johns, Butler, and Villanova in the mix for a bid but also beating up on each other. This may not be settled till the Big East Tournament which could be a bubble palooza.
Notes on my selection process:
- I don’t create matchups. My goal is to match the NCAA S Curve and select the right teams. Honestly the bracketing procedures are too tedious.
- Conference champions (* teams) in the pre-conference tournament brackets are picked by the team with the highest conference winning % at time of bracket creation. If there is a tie, the team with the highest NET is picked.
