This is the third bracket of the season and the first I'm feeling some confidence in, though again, there continues to be lots of movement. Had a terrible time with the play-ins. You have to watch the conference affiliations AND be sure one play-in leads into a Thursday site and the other leads into a Friday site. That's a lot. But I also feel like the top three lines are coming into focus. Placing those teams in those lines is tough, though, with five ACC teams in the top 16 (for now).
I moved Buffalo up to a 6 this week, partly because of their big win but much more due to the teams around them losing, sometimes multiple times. I still think they'll get shorted at tournament time, but at least they didn't lose to Rutgers (sorry Buckeye fans). I don't mean to dwell on the Bulls, but they will be a very interesting case in March for the Committee. Their best wins (West Virginia and Syracuse) look a little worse each week. While Syracuse righted itself after the loss to Buffalo (at least until Saturday night), West Virginia has lost four straight and is at the bottom of the Big 12. So they beat the Big 12's worst team, and two bubble teams ('Cuse and San Francisco). Better than most other mid majors? Definitely. Worthy of an at-large? I'd say so. Five or six seed material? I'm not so sure, especially once the MAC schedule pushes those non-league wins further back.
Ole Miss makes its first appearance of the season. Whacking two top 15 teams, including one on the road, makes for a fast-track to a single-digit seed even coming off the bubble.
I think from here I'll be doing a new bracket on Saturday (not Sunday) night, and maybe doing reflections like these on Sunday. My projections are now appearing in my local newspaper on Mondays, so that's an exciting development (for me).
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