NCAA Tournament Projections – Version 4.0

I’m not in the boat that likes to think a lot can change in a week. Last year, Syracuse plowed through the competition in the four-day Big East tournament and went from being a NIT participant to a 5-seed in the NCAAs. I rendered this ridiculous and had a feeling that Texas A&M had a good shot at an upset. I mention this because Virginia Tech dropped six seeds and Florida St. went up seven in the matter of a week. First, let’s talk about VT’s horrific week. Two double-digits losses and was at home to NC St. Even worse, among their two signatures, those teams (Duke, UNC) collected 3 losses this week. With regard to FSU, they are just rolling, and it culminated with a win at Cameron.

Two one-seeds, North Carolina and Wisconsin, lost and kept their high seeding as a result of two major factors – (1) their relative strength to the two-seeds and beyond and (2) their conference strength relative to other teams.

Meanwhile, Texas A&M gathered the biggest win of the week and of Billy Gillespie’s Aggie reign at Fogg Allen Fieldhouse. Acie Law IV may just be one of the best closers in recent years. Sometimes, I think Bill Self is trying to get fired. Saturday night was one of those nights.

Oregon also had a rough week with losses at UCLA and USC (who get no love from other bracketologists), which knocked them down two seeds. WASU’s road sweep in the desert allayed fears of a letdown following the Oregon game last Saturday.

In other news, while I rate Virginia Commonwealth rather highly, they should only be a 10 seed, as I struggled to avoid seeding conflicts with power conference teams.

If you have any questions to be answered in Tuesday’s NCAA Bracket-Related Questions, either send a comment or shoot me an email (phashemi@gmail.com).

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

Last Four In: BYU, Georgia, New Mexico St., Texas
Last Four Out: Tennessee, West Virginia, Michigan St., Old Dominion
Next Four Out: Maryland, Hofstra, Louisville, Bradley

Summary
ACC: 7
Big East: 6
Big 12: 6
PAC-10: 6
SEC: 6
Big Ten: 4
Missouri Valley: 4
Mountain West: 3
Western Athletic: 2