Bauertology: 1/13/25

A schedule? Regularity? Who needs any of that?

Bauertology has perhaps been a bit notorious in years past for dropping at the very strict intervals of whenever I have the time to do it, but it’s a new year, so I’ll craft a resolution right now to post new brackets at more routine times. From this moment forward, you can expect new Bauertology projections on Mondays and Fridays, at least, up until mid-February, when the Monday time slot is instead taken up by Bauer’s Bubble Watch. (Just a month away from that returning—how time flies!)

As for today’s projection, not too much to add—team résumés are finally starting to shape up into something recognizable, so it’s getting a little bit easier to make order out of the chaos. I’m feeling pretty confident about the order of my first 20 or so teams, and I feel good about who I’ve got in and who I’ve got out. But, as always, don’t take it too seriously; we still have two full months’ worth of games to play. Plenty of time for things to change drastically!

And I’m thankful that the bracket today was pretty easy to build; only really ran into one snag, that being that I have to create a potential first-round game between Purdue and Ohio State, due to the First Four game between Saint Mary’s and Iowa on the 11 line slotting into a Thursday/Saturday pod. That means that the other First Four game between Vanderbilt and Ohio State on the 12 line needs to be in a Friday/Sunday pod to prevent a team from playing a game two days in a row. Of course, the only Friday/Sunday pod on the 12 line is the Seattle pod in which Purdue is already waiting. But, per the NCAA’s bracketing guidelines, “any principle can be relaxed if two or more teams from the same conference are among the last four at-large seeded teams participating in the First Four.” This is indeed the case with both Ohio State and Iowa being First Four teams, so we’ve got to do what we’ve got to do.

As for other inquiries about my seeding or bracketing process, I’m all ears as always! Enjoy the new Bauertology for Monday, Jan. 13, and leave your comments and concerns if you have ’em!