March 3 Bracket

Selection Sunday is coming up so fast, just two weeks away! I think things are starting to fall into place now, but there's still a long way to go. I'll add to this post after my Observer article appears Monday at www.observertoday.com.

UPDATE:
So in my Observer article I mentioned Wofford. They make an interesting comparison to Buffalo, I think. Consider their resumes:

Wofford has just four losses on the year: North Carolina (a 2-seed), Kansas (a 3), Mississippi State (a 6) and Oklahoma (a bubble team). Their NET is 14 (!!) and they are 3-4 in Q1 games. They have zero Q2-Q4 losses.

UB has just three losses on the year: Marquette (a 4-seed), Bowling Green (a Q2 loss) and Northern Illinios (a Q3 loss). Their NET is 15 (!!) and they are 2-1 in Q1 games but have two Q2/Q3 losses.

UB's best win (Syracuse, an 8-seed) is better than Wofford's (Furman, a fringy bubble team) but their worst loss to Northern Illinois is to a team with a 150 NET while Wofford's worst loss is to Oklahoma with a 42 NET.

Aside from thinking that a game between these two would be amazing, I'm not sure which I'd put ahead of the other. It's not like Wofford went undefeated in a conference without good teams. Furman (44 NET) and UNC Greensboro (58 NET) are both tougher than Toledo (60 NET) and Bowling Green (106 NET), though Teamrankings.com has the MAC two spots higher than the Southern. If they both win out, I think they need to go on the same seed line. But I also think that both should be safely in the field.

I'll be very interested in how the drama unfolds at the top too. North Carolina is my top 2-seed right now after Michigan State's shocking loss to Indiana. Tennessee's profile, despite the win over Kentucky, isn't quite as strong given their SOS disparity. If UNC beats Duke this week I'll probably give the Tar Heels a 1-seed, but I think it's very close between Duke/Kentucky/Tennessee/UNC right now. If any of them sweep the regular season and tournament titles, it'll be tough to keep them off the top line.