February 27 Bracket Update

Going through the bracket this week, it seemed like more teams were moving down than up and so some teams moved up through default. Duke, Creighton, Wisconsin, Maryland, Northwestern, Xavier and USC all lost two games this week and so I moved them down a bit accordingly. Miami had a pair of really good wins. SMU is a team I moved up more because everyone near them moved down than because of wins over Houston and UConn, but 5 feels too high to me.

You can make an argument for several teams to be in or out at the cut line. I moved Syracuse into a non-PiG 11 after they split two tough games. TCU, Tennessee, K-State and Georgetown played their way out of my bracket (or in the Hoyas' case, off my bubble). Rhode Island, Vanderbilt, and Georgia are other teams on the fringes of consideration.

It may be a bit much but I put Providence into the field. Their RPI/SOS are both good (better than Syracuse's and GT's for instance) and they have six top 50 wins. I'm willing to listen to who you'd replace them with. I can't get into a Clemson team that is close but no cigar every game and 3-9 in their last 12, or a K State team that is slumping at the wrong time. Georgia Tech, Syracuse and Providence have the most top 25 wins of anyone on the bubble and I have to think all three have enough (as of today) to overcome their sub-par RPI/SOS numbers.

The madness starts this week. Good luck to the teams playing conference tournaments this week. I invite constructive comments and questions on Twitter at @chris17thSeed.