NCAA Tournament Projections – Version 3.0

The tournament projections return after two weeks worth of further conference assimilation. Alabama and Tennessee surely cannot be fans of Vanderbilt and Georgia’s unexpected ascendancy, yet they join the Commodores and Dawgs at the tail of the bracket.

The Missouri Valley continues to demonstrate parity; however, Southern Illinois and Creighton have pulled away [a bit] from the pack with 8-3 conference records. Meanwhile, the Big Ten continues to be top-heavy, the Big XII remains full of question marks, and the Big East seems mediocre at best. And don’t look now, because Coach K is talking to the referees to not only make sure that it’s okay for David McClure to get away with goaltending, but to also add too much time to the clock en route to a buzzer beater. Both happened and Duke defeated a stingy Clemson team, who might just go into a tailspin after letting Virginia rattle off the final 15 points in their home loss on Sunday.

Out west, Oregon reluctantly pulled off a Northwest split as they needed two Maarty Leunen free throws with under a second remaining to force the extra session at Washington State. After reeling off the first ten points in overtime, the Ducks barely hung on to win by 3. In Tucson, Arizona’s woeful January culminated in a 92-64 loss at the hands of North Carolina, who were themselves without three players in their normal rotation. They come in this week as the lowest 5-seed, needing strong performances in order to force their way back into the Power 16.

Seed	East	South	Midwest	West
1	North Carolina	Florida	Wisconsin	UCLA
2	Kansas	Pittsburgh	Oregon	Ohio St.
3	Marquette	Texas A&M	Duke	Memphis
4	Kentucky	USC	Southern Illinois	Virginia Tech
5	Arizona	Indiana	Oklahoma St.	Air Force
6	Nevada	Butler	Vanderbilt	Arkansas
7	Michigan St.	Clemson	Creighton	Washington St.
8	Notre Dame	Gonzaga	Stanford	Texas Tech
9	Missouri St.	Virginia	Georgetown	Northern Iowa
10	VCU	Georgia	Texas	Boston College
11	UNLV	New Mexico St.	Xavier	Villanova
12	Appalachian St.	Winthrop	Alabama	Syracuse
13	Holy Cross	Akron	Florida St.	Tennessee
14	Pennsylvania	Texas A&M – Corpus Christi	Oral Roberts	Western Kentucky
15	Vermont	E. Tennessee St.	Marist	Cal St. Fullerton
16	Delaware St.	Jackson St./Central Connecticut St.	Austin Peay	Weber St.

Last Four In: Alabama, Syracuse, Florida St., Tennessee
Last Four Out: Bradley, Kansas St., West Virginia, BYU
Next Four Out: Hofstra, Maryland, Louisville, Georgia Tech

Summary:
ACC: 7
SEC: 7
Big East: 6
PAC-10: 6
Big 12: 5
Big Ten: 4
Missouri Valley: 4
Mountain West: 2
Western Athletic: 2