Sunday, March 17, 2013

Road to Selection Sunday


Happy Selection Sunday, folks. The most important date of the college basketball season is upon us. With fewer than six hours remaining until the NCAA tournament is revealed, the field of 68 is almost filled. Ole Miss could make things much easier on itself later today by beating Florida in the SEC tournament title game, but the rest of the action today is for seeding. The last few days of the major conference tournaments have made the movement around the cutline very fluid, especially the last couple of spots.

Here’s my breakdown of the tournament:

ACC (4): Duke, Miami (Fl.), NC State, North Carolina
Big East (6): Georgetown, Louisville, Marquette, Syracuse, Pittsburgh, Notre Dame
Big Ten (6): Indiana, Ohio State, Michigan State, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois
Big 12 (3): Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma State
Pac-12 (3): Arizona, Oregon, UCLA
SEC (2): Florida, Missouri
Atlantic-10 (3): Saint Louis, VCU, Butler
Conference-USA (1): Memphis
Missouri Valley (1): Creighton
Mountain West (4): New Mexico, UNLV, Colorado State, San Diego State
WCC (1): Gonzaga

Automatic bids from one-bid leagues: 20

That adds up to 54 teams, leaving 14 spots still open.

The teams very likely to receive bids are (9):

Cincinnati
Villanova
Minnesota
Oklahoma
Iowa State
Colorado
California
Temple
Wichita State

Therefore, the teams in the mix for those final five bids are:
Boise State
La Salle
Saint Mary’s
Middle Tennessee
Mississippi
Tennessee
Kentucky
Massachusetts
Virginia
Iowa
Southern Miss
Alabama
Maryland
Baylor

Who gets in? Check out my complete projected bracket at 5 p.m. to find out.

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