March 15, 2014 Bracketology

  The bubble has basically completely shrunk to nearly nothing with basically all bubble teams who could make the tournament with an at large bid losing.  Friday saw the elimination of essentially everyone who would not require an auto-bid from contention and leaves us with a much clearer picture of how the field will look.  There was a lot of movement with several teams continuing big tournament runs.  Yellow denotes a team who has received their leagues auto-bid and as always teams appear in true seed order.  

  1 Seeds-  Florida,  Arizona,  Wichita St.,  Wisconsin
  2 Seeds-  Villanova,  Kansas,  Michigan,  Creighton
  3 Seeds-  Iowa St.,  Michigan St.,  San Diego St.,  Duke
  4 Seeds-  Syracuse,  Connecticut,  Virginia,  Louisville
  5 Seeds-  Baylor,  Texas,  Oklahoma,  Cincinnati
  6 Seeds-  Ohio St.,  George Washington,  St. Louis,  UCLA
  7 Seeds-  UMASS,  New Mexico,  North Carolina,  VCU
  8 Seeds-  Oregon,  Oklahoma St.,  Pittsburgh,  Kentucky
  9 Seeds-  St. Joseph's,  Colorado,  Stanford,  Kansas St.
10 Seeds-  Providence,  Memphis,  Iowa,  Gonzaga 
11 Seeds-  Arizona St.,  Dayton,  California,  Nebraska/Tennessee
12 Seeds-  Xavier/Florida St.,  Harvard,  Toledo,  Stephen F. Austin
13 Seeds-  Louisiana Tech,  North Dakota St.,  Manhattan,  North Carolina Central
14 Seeds-  Delaware,  New Mexico St.,  Georgia St.,  Eastern Kentucky
15 Seeds-  Mercer,  Stony Brook,  Wofford,  UW Milwaukee
16 Seeds-  American,  Weber St.,  Coastal Carolina/Cal St. Northridge,  Mount St. Mary's/Texas Southern

Last four byes:  Iowa,  Arizona St.,  Dayton,  California
Last four in:  Nebraska,  Xavier,  Florida St.,  Tennessee
First four out:  St. John's,  Illinois,  Missouri,  SMU
Next four out:  North Carolina St.,  Minnesota,  BYU,  Southern Mississippi

Notes:  I worked out the bracket and all of the seeds fit properly within the NCAA Principles and Procedures therefore these seeds appear true to actual seed order(S-Curve).  Also if you look at the last four out and next four out I rank the teams according to how I see their entire body of works even if they are done playing and can not play their way into the field.  The only teams that could steal a bid at this point causing any of the last four in to lose their spots would be  St. Bonaventure,  North Carolina St., and Georgia.  Basically the bracket is set with these teams in it, based on my projections, unless one of those three wins their conferences auto-bid.  Seeds are subject to change though based off  of Saturday and Sunday's results.  Tomorrow I will post the full bracket with projected first round locations and regions.  If the Sunday final games do not provide a mess where there could be several scenarios that change the bracket I am going to attempt to put up 2 brackets one based on each scenario for Sunday's games because otherwise it may be difficult to get the bracket in before the Selection Show on Sunday.