In about 50 hours, we will have a bracket.
The end of the road is coming, folks. The selection committee has already started its deliberations, selecting and seeding teams day by day, and will only make minor changes from here on out.
With that all occurring, I had to be as thorough as I possibly could when scrubbing my bracket. Today, I went over and back, up and down, left and right, side by side, making sure this seed list was in proper order.
…Of course, it’s already outdated, as this seed list and bracket use this morning’s data and do not account for today’s already-finished results, including Alabama’s decimation of Mississippi State and Rutgers’ Big Ten tournament loss to Purdue. So, for the time being, just pretend those things haven’t happened yet; those will be accounted for in the next update.
But even then, those results are only going to shuffle seeds a little bit. The selection committee is on a deadline and doesn’t have much time anymore for crunching every little bit of data. The seed list and bracket you see below are close to final. It’s time to start taking these projections seriously.
Enjoy this way-late Bauertology for Friday, March 10. You can look forward to an updated bracket tomorrow, a final bracket on Sunday just before the reveal, and (if time permits) a final Bauer’s Bubble Watch tomorrow recapping where every team stands heading into Selection Sunday.
THE BRACKET
THE TRUE SEED LIST, BUBBLE, AND BIDS BY CONFERENCE
How come gonzaga wouldn’t play in the west region? Shouldn’t they have first allocation being the highest ranked 3 seed?
Because the top 4 teams from one conference must all be in different regions if they’re all top 4 seeds (i.e. Kansas in the Midwest, Texas in the East, Baylor in the South, Kansas State in the West), Gonzaga must go to a different region.
What are you seeing in Mississippi State’s resume that looks better than Oklahoma State’s? The 2 look very similar with Oklahoma State a bit better across the board. Oklahoma State’s resume has almost no weaknesses vs the other last 4-8 teams in the field yet most seem to have them on the outside…I’m struggling to see the logic.
Also, what about NC State’s resume looks better than North Carolina’s?