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

Last Four In: Mississippi State, Notre Dame, Saint Mary’s, UAB

Last Four Out: San Diego State, Rhode Island, Minnesota, Dayton

Next Four Out: Charlotte, Mississippi, Cincinnati, Arizona State

Automatic bids: Stony Brook, Xavier, Duke, Belmont, Kansas, Syracuse, Weber State, Coastal Carolina, Ohio State, UC-Santa Barbara, Old Dominion, Butler, UTEP, Cornell, Siena, Kent State, Morgan State, Northern Iowa, New Mexico, Quinnipiac, Murray State, California, Lehigh, Kentucky, Wofford, Sam Houston State, Jackson State, Oakland, Troy, Gonzaga, Utah State.

Bids per conference: Big East (9), ACC (7), Big 12 (7), Big 10 (5), SEC (5), MWC (3), Atlantic 10 (3), Conference USA (2).

• Remember our discussion all last year about whether the Big East, in all its grace and glory, could get nine teams into the NCAA Tournament? While that storied conference did receive three #1 seeds, it fell two bids short of reaching that distinguished total. Nobody has been talking about the possibility this season, but it could very well happen. In fact, this Monday’s bracket features nine Big East squads with Notre Dame sneaking in as one of the last two teams allowed entry. The Irish join the locks — Syracuse, Villanova, West Virginia, Pittsburgh and Georgetown — two teams that can clinch with just one more win, Marquette and Louisville, and another that still remains in the field on the heels of a handful of signatures wins, Connecticut. The odds are the Big East getting eight bids on Selection Sunday, which is still a noteworthy accomplishment.
• Duke has replaced Purdue on the top seed line. The Boilermakers are already going to be punished by the committee for Robbie Hummel’s injury; losing to Michigan State at home on Sunday only triggered the inevitable. The good news is that Purdue could return to a #1 seed on Thursday if Duke loses at Maryland and Kansas State loses at Kansas. Purdue should win their final two games vs. Indiana and at Penn State. Duke winning would keep them as a #1 seed while Kansas State winning could vault them ahead of Duke as a #1 seed depending on updated numbers.
• Mississippi State edged San Diego State as the last team in the field. Both teams have lackluster SOS, some bad losses and a small amount of quality wins and are 9-5 in their respective conferences. I gave the Bulldogs the edge based on the SEC ranked higher as a conference than the Mountain West and two more wins vs. the RPI top-100. Notre Dame earned a spot based on their quality wins over West Virginia, Pittsburgh and at Georgetown along with showing the committee they can compete without Luke Harangody (who is questionable to play again this season). Remember the bubble will only get smaller from here. These bubble teams will root for Old Dominion, California, Gonzaga, Butler, Utah State, the top three teams in the Atlantic 10 and the top three teams in the Mountain West to win their respective conference tournaments.

Next seed update: Wednesday, March 3. Next bracket: Friday, March 5.

zhayes9 (301 Posts)

This entry was posted on Monday, March 1st, 2010 at 5:12 am by zhayes9 and is filed under bracketology, Regular Features. Tagged: duke, kansas state, mississippi state, notre dame, purdue, san diego 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.