Annually, the NCAA Selection Committee announces their top sixteen overall seeds (the top four seeds) four weeks ahead of “Selection Sunday” (set for March 14) in the NCAA March Madness Bracket Preview. It will be televised just an hour after this post is published, at 12:30 PM ET time on CBS. Anyway, here’s what I think the committee will announce in an hour.
Top questions:
Will Gonzaga or Baylor be the number one seed? Everyone knows that the only two unbeatens left in Division 1 college basketball are the best in the sport. But where does the committee stand on the matter? Does Gonzaga play a strong enough schedule to be considered a top overall seed? In my opinion, Gonzaga went out and scheduled a great non conference schedule for November and December, beating the likes of Kansas, Virginia, and more. Likewise, Baylor has competed in a tough Big 12 and its record remains unblemished.
Who is the final team on the top line? Ohio State is the favorite with 5 quadrant 1 wins. But Alabama, despite losses to Oklahoma and Missouri in the last two weeks, remains a strong contender with just a single SEC loss. Ohio State should get the spot not only because of their quad 1 wins but because of its standing in the Big Ten, with just four losses in a conference many consider the best in the country.
How many can the Big Ten get in the top 16? Like I mentioned in the paragraph above, the Big Ten has been the premiere college basketball conference this season with seven teams in top thirty of the NCAA Evaluation tool. The tool, more commonly known as the “NET”, replaced the Basketball Power Index (more commonly known as the “BPI”) as the main metric used for the bracket reveal come “Selection Sunday”.
Reminder: Due to the COVID-19, the entire 2021 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament is being played in Indiana, which is why the NCAA is dropping the regional brackets and instead naming them in the numbers.
My projected top 16 seeds:
()= Overall seed
Region 1:
1.Gonzaga (1)
2.Houston (8)
3.West Virginia (9)
4.Tennessee (16)
Region 4:
1.Ohio State (4)
2.Villanova (5)
3.Oklahoma (12)
4.Iowa (13)
Region 2:
1.Baylor (2)
2.Alabama (7)
3.Texas Tech (10)
4.Missouri (15)
Region 3:
1.Michigan (3)
2.Illinois (6)
3.Virginia (11)
4.Texas (14)
