As you know, over the course of the last month and with the invaluable assistance of our correspondent brigade, we’ve rolled out 31 conference primers. For each conference primer, we made a conscious attempt to provide a postseason seed for each and every NCAA team. Now that we’ve finished, we thought it would be interesting to slot each team into a bracket taking into consideration the standard rules of seeding that the NCAA uses, and taking it one step further, play out the games as we would currently pick them. Our results are below, so here is the first annual RTC Preseason Bracket. (sorry for the small size, but if you click the image, you can see our predictions)
Just some brief additional information on conference affiliation (avg. seed):
- Big East – 9 teams (4.8)
- Big 12 – 7 teams (6.3)
- SEC – 6 teams (7.2)
- ACC – 5 teams (5.4)
- Big 10 – 4 teams (6.3)
- Pac-10 – 4 teams (5.8)
- A10, CUSA, Mtn West, Missouri Valley, WCC – 2 teams each (7.9)
- All Other Conferences (20) – 1 team each (13.8)
Tell us how stupid we are below in the comments. (trust us, we know this bracket isn’t perfect)
View Comments (4)
Texas and Wisconsin play in the regular season, so they can't play in the 2nd round, right? Good bracket though.
Yeah, I'm not sure that's an actual rule, is it? Can anyone confirm that's a rule or a preference?
Good bracket. I try to avoid criticizing preseason brackets, but I'll just leave my two cents.
1) Siena will be a better seed- They were a 13 last year, and return all five starters. I expect them to be an 11 when it's all said and done this season.
2) Another Villanova-Clemson 1st round game would be fun, but this time around the seeds are reversed and there won't be an upset.
3) I think Purdue will come out on top in the Big 10 over Michigan State. They have the experience and talent to win the Big 10 and get a top seed... but I think they could easily be knocked out early.
David, thanks for your comments. If we had done this bracket all at once (rather than working our way up over the course of a month), we agree that Siena would have had a better seed.
We like Purdue too, actually, but this year's MSU team has the look of a classic Izzo squad to us. We'll see though (actually we won't see b/c we don't get the BTN).