TLS Bracketology (3/6/17)

*Data current prior to St. Mary’s vs. BYU on Monday Night

It’s six days until Selection Sunday, but if the committee were to name the 68-team tournament field right now, these are my projections for what it would look like.  First, let’s take a look at the teams in order from 1-68.  Teams bolded are currently the highest seed remaining in their conference tournaments, and thus favorites to claim automatic bids.  Teams with blue backgrounds have already earned an automatic bid, and teams with orange backgrounds are projected to participate in the “First Four” tournament play-in games.

To the right of each team, I’ve listed their overall record, and RPI and SOS rankings.  By no means are these the only stats I used when deciding how to rank the teams.  Rather, they are basic yet important metrics used by the committee.  For any questions on why I seeded a team in a particular position, comment below.

Here are the first four teams out of the tournament.  All but Illinois State still have their conference tournaments ahead of them and can pick up quality wins to help boost their resumes.

These are the next four teams out.  At-large bids for these guys are unlikely and would require a deep conference tournament run plus some help from other teams.

Lastly, here’s a full breakdown of how many spots in the field come from each conference.

Top Level Sports’ coverage of March Madness continues tomorrow, where we’ll play the blind resumes game.  The next Bracketology update will come on Wednesday.

-Connor