Zach Hayes is RTC’s  resident bracketologist.  He’ll regularly be out-scooping, out-thinking and out-shining Lunardi over the next two months.

Some quick bullet points regarding this week’s bracket:

• Despite the loss at South Carolina, Kentucky remains a #1 seed but drops in the pecking order behind Kansas (#1 overall), Syracuse and Villanova. Kentucky still had some distance between them and the highest ranked #2 seed in Michigan State.
• Georgetown looked like they would fall to a #3 seed with their blowout defeat the hands of Syracuse, but a big time rebound at home against Duke keeps the Hoyas on the second line. Despite the OT loss at home to Kansas, Kansas State reaches the #2 seed plateau. Remember they picked up a huge victory earlier in the week at Baylor.
• Texas drops to the lowest mark they’ve been in weeks to a #3 seed. I had about six or seven teams vying for the final #3 seed after Texas, Purdue and West Virginia. Vanderbilt’s overall portfolio and strong RPI gives them the nod over the likes of BYU, Wisconsin, New Mexico and Baylor.
• One at-large stealer this week: Arizona. The Wildcats knocked off California at home Sunday afternoon and earn the Pac-10 automatic bid with the head-to-head tiebreaker over the Bears. They received a #12 seed and would hypothetically keep their consecutive NCAA Tournament streak alive.
• Keep in mind that the committee doesn’t factor in how many teams receive bids from a conference. Each team is judged on their own portfolio as if they were an independent. Nine Big East teams can occur if all of those nine teams deserve bids. With the Pac-10 pathetic and Big 10 disappointing, it could happen. Marquette and Louisville were two of my last teams to make the bracket and Connecticut not far behind.
• Hope you guys enjoy my Houston bracket. It’s a dandy.

Automatic bids: Maine, Temple, Duke, Jacksonville, Kansas, Villanova, Weber State, Coastal Carolina, Pacific, Michigan State, George Mason, UAB, Butler, Cornell, Siena, Kent State, Morgan State, Northern Iowa, BYU, Robert Morris, Murray State, Arizona, Lehigh, Kentucky, Charleston, Sam Houston State, Jackson State, Oakland, Arkansas State, Gonzaga, New Mexico State.

Bids per conference: Big East (9), Big 12 (7), ACC (5), SEC (5), Atlantic 10 (5), Big 10 (4), Mountain West (3), Pac-10 (2), West Coast (2), Colonial (2).

Last Four In: Louisville, Richmond, Marquette, Florida.

Last Four Out: South Carolina, Charlotte, Maryland, Wichita State.

Next Four Out: Tulsa, North Carolina, Mississippi State, Illinois.

Next bracket: February 8.

zhayes9 (301 Posts)

This entry was posted on Monday, February 1st, 2010 at 2:26 am by zhayes9 and is filed under bracketology, Regular Features. Tagged: arizona, charlotte, connecticut, florida, georgetown, illinois, kansas, kansas state, kentucky, louisville, marquette, maryland, mississippi state, north carolina, purdue, richmond, south carolina, syracuse, texas, tulsa, vanderbilt, villanova, west virginia, wichita state. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.