Bracketology 1/9/2023

Conference play is now underway and we have a pretty unusual group of suspects at the top of the seed list. Of my top eight teams, only 2 (Kansas and Arizona) have received a 1 seed in the last decade. It is nice to see some new teams at the top but it is a bit weird to see Duke, North Carolina and Kentucky languishing in the middle of the seed list.

The balance of power in the middle conferences of the sport is a bit weird this year as well. The Atlantic 10 is having their worst year in memory with no teams in at-large contention and its leader (Dayton) all the way down on the 14 line. The Mountain West is picking up the slack with a whopping 5 teams in this update.

1: Kansas, Purdue, Houston, Connecticut

2: Arizona, Alabama, Tennessee, UCLA

3: Texas, Kansas State, Gonzaga, Arkansas

4: Iowa State, Xavier, Miami (FL), San Diego State

5: Virginia, Marquette, Missouri, Duke

6: Ohio State, TCU, North Carolina, Auburn

7: Providence, NC State, Indiana, Boise State

8: West Virginia, St. Mary’s, Wisconsin, Baylor

9: Kentucky, Florida Atlantic, Rutgers, Mississippi State

10: Nevada, Michigan State, New Mexico, Utah State

11: Arizona State, Charleston, Northwestern, (Creighton/Virginia Tech)

12: (Maryland/UNLV), Sam Houston State, Iona, Oral Roberts

13: Kent State, UMass Lowell, Southern Miss, UC Santa Barbara

14: Dayton, Florida Gulf Coast, Drake, Princeton

15: American, Norfolk State, SIU Edwardsville, Milwaukee

16: Furman, Longwood, (Eastern Washington/Bryant), (Grambling State/Texas A&M CC)

First Four Out: Clemson, Memphis, UCF, Utah

Next Four Out: Penn State, Illinois, USC, Pittsburgh

Bids by Conference:

Big Ten: 8

Big 12: 7

SEC: 7

ACC: 6

Big East: 5

Mountain West: 5

Pac-12: 3

West Coast: 2