Projected NCAA Tournament Seeds: Bubble Teams Suck

After two days of major conference tournament play, college basketball fans everywhere have received even more confirmation that Bubble teams are horrible this year.

Arizona State probably played its way to the NIT with an embarrassing loss to Stanford. In the first half, it appears Washington is on its way to losing to Oregon State too. Cal is doing its part, though, and is really the only deserving Pac 10 club.

Memphis and UAB fell apart in the Conference USA quarterfinals; Wake Forest and Clemson were both knocked off in ACC first round; Missouri lost in the first round and Oklahoma State in the quarterfinals of the Big 12 tourney; and Seton Hall, South Florida, and Cincinnati all failed to win their second games in the Big East quarterfinals.

Did anyone help themselves? Yeah, Notre Dame is now safely in the NCAA tournament as is San Diego State from the Mountain West. St. Mary’s earned the automatic berth from the West Coast Conference by knocking off Gonzaga the other night. Florida and Georgia Tech also avoided their own disasters with wins in the SEC and the ACC tournament respectively. Illinois will get its shot on Friday. If the Illini can find a way to defeat Wisconsin on a neutral court after failing to do so in Champaign last weekend, Bruce Weber’s club should claim one of the last at-large spots.

Along those lines, let’s take a second look at how this NCAA tournament might be seeded.

The good teams from the mid-major conferences all won their conference tournaments thus avoiding their leagues receiving multiple bids—Siena (MAAC), Butler (Horizon), Old Dominion (Colonial), and Northern Iowa (Missouri Valley). The only one left to worry about is Utah State (WAC).

No. 1: Kansas, Kentucky, Syracuse, Duke
No. 2: Purdue, West Virginia, Ohio State, Kansas State
No. 3: New Mexico, Michigan State, Pittsburgh, Baylor
No. 4: Villanova, BYU, Temple, Butler
No. 5: Wisconsin, Georgetown, Vanderbilt, Tennessee
No. 6: Maryland, Xavier, Texas A&M, Northern Iowa
No. 7: Gonzaga, California, Richmond, Marquette
No. 8: Texas, Florida State, UNLV, Louisville
No. 9: Oklahoma State, St. Mary’s, Missouri, Notre Dame
No. 10: Clemson, UTEP, Florida, Wake Forest
No. 11: San Diego State, Ga Tech, Va Tech, Cornell
No. 12: Old Dominion, Illinois, Siena, Utah State
No. 13: Memphis, Rhode Island

Bracket Matrix