March Madness Bracket Prediction 3/3

Hello everyone and welcome to my first blog post!

I have been making bracket and seed list predictions for the last few weeks and wanted to post it for anyone who is interested to take a look at. I’ll put screenshots and link to the bracket below as well as breaking down some of the decisions I made. If you click on the link, you will see the seeds listed out, the conference champions (in italics), the first four teams, the first four out, next four out, and the next next four out. If you have any questions feel free to reach out!

Top 4 Seeds

The top 3 one seeds (Duke, Michigan, and Arizona) seem to be consensus among myself and the other websites posting their brackets. A lot of people flip-flop Florida and UConn, but currently I think Florida will take the spot. This will obviously change depending on the rest of their results. I think that Illinois, Houston, and Michigan State are the best remaining teams and they are my 2-seeds. I have Gonzaga as my top 3-seed but I think they are consistently overrated and overranked. Iowa State has had some big wins but also have shown some inconsistency in beating the top teams so they slid to the 3-seed. Purdue and Nebraska are the next logical 3’s but I don’t think they will go far. The 4-seeds this year I believe are fairly weak. Texas Tech without Toppin isn’t much of a threat, Virginia I don’t believe is great, and Alabama is similar to Iowa State where they can’t win the big games. Kansas I think will be very interesting but if Darryn Peterson can only go for 20 minutes they could be a big first or second round upset threat. 

5-6 Seeds

The 5-6 seeds are an interesting group for me as I think this group could make a deep run because of the opponent in the next round. At the 5-seeds, we have four teams in St. John’s, Saint Mary’s, North Carolina, and Arkansas that can beat the top teams when it’s their night. I specifically see Saint Mary’s and UNC (with a healthy Caleb Wilson) to make some noise. The 6-seeds are equally as interesting, with Wisconsin, BYU, and Miami being potential world beaters when they are on. AJ Dybantsa is one of the best, if not the best player in the country, and when Wisconsin’s guards are on and hitting their threes, no one is beating them. Miami has done well in a tough ACC and could make a splash come tournament time. Tennessee is an interesting team because they play in a good SEC conference, but they seem to lose at least once a week which is not a great formula for success. Getting out of the first round won’t be easy for either seed, but the next game against the 3 and 4 seeds I believe are very winnable. Something to keep an eye on, especially if there will be some movement after the conference tournaments. 

7-9 Seeds

We see our first mid-major teams starting with the 7 and 8 seeds, with Saint Louis and Utah State coming in at a 7 and Miami OH entering as an 8 seed. The two other 7-seeds are Louisville and Vanderbilt. Louisville could win their first game but would be shocked to see them get beyond the first weekend. Vanderbilt, in my opinion, is an incredibly weak team that I believe is only getting this seed because they are an SEC school. Kentucky, Missouri, and Clemson round out the 8-seeds. All solid teams that could win their first game but not much beyond that. The 9-seeds are UCF, Villanova, NC State, and Georgia. Very similar to the other 8-seeds where they might win a game but I am not too impressed with them beyond this. The most controversial thing about this seeding group is Miami OH at an 8-seed. To me, Miami should be more of a 4-6 seed but I know the committee won’t put them there. While their resume is weak, they still haven’t lost and that needs to account for something. Anything lower than an 8-seed would be inappropriate and set a poor precedent for mid-major teams going forward.

10-11 Seeds

The 10-seeds are Iowa, Ohio State, SMU, and Texas. Iowa and Ohio State come out of a strong Big Ten where they had some great wins combined with tough losses. If Ohio State can have a decent shooting night. The 7-seeds might be in some trouble. Bennet Stirtz and Iowa can inflict the same damage, but Stirtz needs some help from the other players, an area Iowa has struggled this season. SMU and Texas are good teams with stronger resumes and quad 1 ones, but their quad 2 losses remain a concern. The top 2 11-seeds are UCLA and Santa Clara and are the last teams to get a bye. Santa Clara is in a tough WCC conference that doesn’t always get the credit they deserve, for sure one to watch out for. New Mexico, Texas A&M, TCU, and Indiana are the last four teams to get an at large bid. While they may be last in, these are all teams that could and have caused chaos this season. Don’t overlook them unless you want to repack your bags real quick.

12-16 Seeds

All of these teams are conference tournament winners and while I won’t highlight all of them, I will pick out a few that could make some noise. USF and Yale are two strong 12-seeds that are going to give the 5-seeds more trouble than they want. UNC Wilmington plays in an underrated Coastal Athletic Conference where they will need to get past Hofstra to win the tournament, not a team to overlook. Hawaii in the tournament will be fun, while I don’t see them winning, why not throw some love at the Rainbow Warriors. The 16-seeds will never be picked to win, but if you want to have some fun look at UT Martin and Vermont. UT Martin plays a fun style of basketball that could give 1-seeds some issues for a half. Vermont has Wisconsin and Seton Hall transfer Gus “The Gus Bus” Yalden and has been a dawg this year for the Catamounts. Will they do much? Probably not but who knows! 

First Four, Next Four, and Next Next Four Out

VCU and Tulsa are two teams that could be in the tournament with some early round losses on the 10 and 11-seed lines. I am always a fan of more mid major teams so these would be fun. Cincinnati and Baylor have had some big wins but are likely not going to get off this line. I have Auburn in the next four although I believe they belong firmly nowhere near this. Virginia Tech, Seton Hall, and Akron are all teams that would need a lot of help to make it in, probably NIT teams. I added in the next next four as a way to see the teams that could make it if pure chaos happens in the conference tournaments. They will likely be firmly in the NIT so I would start preparing for that. 

Bracket

I tried my best to bracket out how I think the teams will be placed come selection Sunday. I looked at the rules of how they are placed and followed them the best I could. 

Let me know your thoughts on anything or if you have some major disagreements!