Bracketology: Big 12 makes its move, matches Big Ten with eight teams behind SEC’s 13 in projected field of 68
Friday’s bracket features 13 SEC teams, which matches a season high. The Big Ten is bubble heavy but is down to eight teams. The Big 12 has matched that number, marking the first time this season that any other conference had cracked the top two in projected teams in the field.
It was otherwise a relatively quiet week for the bracket with No. 3 seed Purdue as the highest seeded team to lose. The Boilermakers followed up a 2-0 Pacific Northwest swing with a loss at home to Ohio State. The Buckeyes snapped Purdue’s 26-game home winning streak. The Boilermakers host Michigan on Friday.
That is hardly the headline of a pretty good weekend of college hoops.
No. 2 seed Tennessee visits No. 1 overall seed Auburn on Saturday looking to gain ground on the Tigers in the SEC standings. Auburn star forward Johni Broome is a game-time decision according to coach Bruce Pearl. A win for the Volunteers could see them climb back to the top line of the bracket.
College basketball grades: Iowa State earns ‘A’, Purdue gets ‘C-‘ in report card heading into weekend
David Cobb
No. 8 seed Georgia will look to stop a three-game losing streak at No. 2 seed Florida. The Bulldogs are not in danger yet of falling out of the bracket, but even a long stretch of losses to good teams can cause problems. After the trip to Gainesville, Georgia gets four out of its next six games at home.
Duke, the No. 2 overall seed, is at No. 11 seed Wake Forest, which could be a dangerous spot for the Blue Devils. The Demon Deacons are 10-0 at home this season, which includes a 67-66 defeat of No. 11 seed North Carolina on Tuesday.
Bracketology top seeds
Check out Palm’s bracket and full field of 68 at the Bracketology hub.
In the Big 12, No. 5 seed Houston looks for its first Quad 1 win of the season at No 3 seed Kansas. It is surprising that we are this deep into the season and the Cougars still do not have such a win. If No. 6 seed West Virginia could crack the top 30 of the NET, that would also be a Quad 1 win for Houston.
There is a lot of action on the bubble as well. Most of it is in the Big Ten, which may not have the most teams in the bracket, but they own the bubble.
No. 10 seed Maryland completes a two game Midwest swing at Indiana, the first team out, Saturday. The Terrapins won at No. 5 seed Illinois on Thursday, which was without arguably the Illini’s best player, Tomislav Ivisic, who was out due to the flu.
The Hoosiers are in a particularly tough part of their schedule. They just played three out of four on the road and lost three out of four. The win came at Ohio State. After the home tilt with the Terrapins, Indiana will start another stretch of three out of four on the road. The road games? Purdue, Wisconsin and Michigan State. Yikes. The home game against Michigan will be no picnic either.
Nebraska had been in every bracket since the in-season ones started in mid-December, but the Cornhuskers dropped out following a 78-73 loss at home to USC on Wednesday. That is the fifth straight defeat for Nebraska. The Cornhuskers will look to not only get back to winning ways but pick up their best win of the season at Wisconsin on Sunday.
