Five wins in a row, capped by Tuesday night’s victory at home against Purdue, has sent Michigan to the top of the Big Ten and pushed the Wolverines to the No. 4 line in our Bracketology projecting the NCAA men’s tournament field.
After leading Florida Atlantic to back-to-back tournament berths and a Final Four appearance two seasons ago, Dusty May has already tied the program record for Big Ten wins by a first-year coach. The Wolverines are a half-game ahead of Purdue heading into Sunday’s trip to Ohio State.
Michigan has a chance to continue scaling the tournament ladder — or getting knocked back a few rungs before the start of March Madness.
Six of the Wolverines’ final seven games before the Big Ten tournament come against teams currently in our bracket. Two of those matchups come against rival Michigan State. They also play Nebraska on the road and host Illinois and Maryland.
Connecticut’s win this week at Creighton – Dan Hurley would like to remind all of us he has two rings, by the way – moves the Huskies up to the No. 7 line, replacing Mississippi State. The Bulldogs fall to a No. 8 seed amid six losses in nine games, most recently at home to Florida.
Two new teams join the bracket. One is John Calipari’s Arkansas, winners of three of four. The Razorbacks are up to No. 41 in the NET rankings. The second is Brigham Young. The Cougars won at West Virginia on Tuesday and will face Kansas State on Saturday in a game with major bubble implications.
And it’s an ugly bracket for the extremely top-heavy ACC. After sending nine teams into March Madness a year ago, the league has only three teams in the projected field: No. 1 seed Duke, No. 7 Louisville and No. 7 Clemson. The last time the ACC had fewer than four teams in the bracket was 2000.
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Bracketology: NCAA Tournament field projection
Last four in
San Diego State, Virginia Commonwealth, Brigham Young, Arkansas.
First four out
Georgia, SMU, Kansas State, Villanova.
NCAA Tournament bids conference breakdown
Multi-bid leagues: SEC (13), Big Ten (10), Big 12 (8), Big East (4), ACC (3), Mountain West (3), Atlantic 10 (2), West Coast (2).