Surprise, reader! It’s a special edition Friday night bracket update! One that I immensely regret doing immensely because boy oh boy did things get much more confusing since Tuesday morning.
Sam Houston State overtook Louisiana Tech as the Conference USA leader, and in doing so, took a sledgehammer to the neat and orderly list of 13-, 14-, 15-, and 16- seeds. The divide between each of those lines was relatively clear earlier this week. But no more! A thirteen seed exits, a fifteen seed enters, and suddenly an inconsequential fight between Morehead State and Oakland for 59th place (they’re both 15-seeds either way) becomes a hugely consequential fight for 58th place (one of them is now a 14-seed). Akron, Vermont, and Charleston‘s meaningless three-way race for 55th is now a quite meaningful race for 54th (the last 13-seed).
Further up the seed list, Colorado‘s quad 1 win at Oregon vaulted the Buffaloes into the top 29 in NET and thus into the field. As such, one of Villanova, St. John’s, Seton Hall, New Mexico, and Virginia had to be left out. This was an extremely painful decision that I have very little confidence in.
And don’t even get me started about the 5/6/7 line. Reader, at the moment there are three 5-seed resumes, nine 6-seed resumes, and zero 7-seed resumes. You could arrange all the teams clustered between 20th and 28th in any order you want and I would not object. Washington State and South Carolina, you let me down this week. So I guess the last 5-seed belongs to Dayton at the moment, though it could be Gonzaga or Nevada or Utah State or Florida or Wisconsin or Saint Mary’s.
Arizona and Tennessee are in a dead heat for the last 1-seed. Marquette, Kansas, Baylor, Iowa State, and Duke are all legitimate contenders for the last spots on the 2-seed line.
Chaos. Chaos everywhere. Hopefully the weekend brings some clarity.
Seed List
1 1 Purdue
2 1 UConn
3 1 Houston
4 1 Tennessee
5 2 Arizona
6 2 North Carolina
7 2 Marquette
8 2 Kansas
9 3 Baylor
10 3 Iowa State
11 3 Duke
12 3 Creighton
13 4 Alabama
14 4 Illinois
15 4 Kentucky
16 4 Auburn
17 5 BYU
18 5 Clemson
19 5 San Diego State
20 5 Dayton
21 6 Gonzaga
22 6 Washington State
23 6 South Carolina
24 6 Wisconsin
25 7 Nevada
26 7 Florida
27 7 Utah State
28 7 Saint Mary’s
29 8 Texas Tech
30 8 Boise State
31 8 Colorado State
32 8 Texas
33 9 Oklahoma
34 9 Northwestern
35 9 Michigan State
36 9 Florida Atlantic
37 10 TCU
38 10 Mississippi State
39 10 Nebraska
40 10 Virginia
41 11A Seton Hall
42 11B St. John’s
43 11A Colorado
44 11 Indiana State
45 11B New Mexico
46 11 Richmond
47 12 South Florida
48 12 Grand Canyon
49 12 Princeton
50 12 McNeese
51 13 Appalachian State
52 13 Samford
53 13 UC Irvine
54 13 Vermont
55 14 Col. of Charleston
56 14 Akron
57 14 Oakland
58 14 High Point
59 15 Morehead State
60 15 Sam Houston State
61 15 Colgate
62 15 Eastern Washington
63 16 Quinnipiac
64 16 Stetson
65 16A Norfolk State
66 16B South Dakota State
67 16A Central Conn. State
68 16B Grambling State
Jake Liker's Bracketology 