Men’s Bracketology 2/7/2025

A lot of teams who were around the bubble (BYU, UCF, Arizona State, Pittsburgh, Indiana, USC) have lost in recent days. That has opened things up for two bubble teams to rocket up the seed list.

The first is Arkansas, who was nearly off the board a week ago but is now my last team in the field after back to back road wins over Kentucky and Texas. The Razorbacks have 3 Q1A wins- those two and a win over Michigan. They also have done nothing else of note and sport a ghastly 7-8 record against quads 1-3. However, I felt this was a stronger resume than all the mediocre teams in my First Four Out.

The second big riser in this update is San Francisco. The Dons knocked off St. Mary’s last night for their first Q1 win of the season, and have no bad losses to date. The WCC is deep this year, and that plays to their advantage- there are still 3 more Q1 games on their schedule.

One minor note about this bracket- I have Vanderbilt and Arkansas playing each other in a First Four game. While this isn’t ideal to have a conference re-match in the First Four, I have 3 SEC teams headed to Dayton, so I had to match two of them up.