January 29 Bracket Update

Bracket update for January 29. Rising this week are Marquette (up 3 seed lines) and Arizona (up two). Also gave the Big 10 teams a bump, as Maryland and Wisconsin both jump two lines, probably due to people falling around them. Falling this week are Creighton, who I probably had too high as a 2 last week, and UCLA (ditto), three lines each, and Notre Dame dropping two lines. I gave Miami a bump after their big win vs UNC.

Some things I'm struggling with as I learn to do these:

• The ACC getting 10 teams in makes it awfully tough to slot teams. As I have it set up, there could be as many as FOUR ACC vs ACC matchups in the Sweet 16. I'm not sure yet how to avoid that. There's also the potential for a Big 10 matchup in that round as well. 
• Tough to sort the teams near the cut line. Did I put Georgia Tech in too soon? Should Clemson even be a tourney team at this point? 

I have to think that some of this will sort itself out in the next month-plus.

Last four in: Wichita State, Clemson, Oklahoma State, California

Feedback, ideas and solutions welcome.

Bracket update for January 22. I'm still experimenting with formats to post the brackets.

Previous 2016-17 Brackets

Just posting the two previous brackets I made. The first is from November.

How things change. I do miss seeing Syracuse in the bracket. Ain't happening right now, but I'm not ruling it out given the chances they'll have to knock off some big boys.

This one was from January 8. 

Jan 15 2017 Projections

Here are my January 15, 2017 bracket projections:

ACC: 10

Big 10: 7

Big 12: 6

Big East: 5

Pac 12: 4

SEC: 4

A-10: 2

WCC: 2

Welcome

Greetings and welcome to my bracket blog. This is my attempt to project the bracket for the NCAA Tournament. I have loved college basketball since I was a kid in Syracuse, NY, rooting for the likes of Pearl Washington and Sherm Douglas and Billy Owens (and against all things Georgetown). As an adult I root for the 'Cuse as always but also for Niagara (where I worked for a time) and VCU (who I saw upset Duke live in the '07 Tournament) and Dayton (who has the best pep band). 

In 2014 I took Joe Lunardi's Bracketology certificate course because I wanted to see how the seedings were done. It was fascinating. I don't pretend that my projections are anywhere near as educated as Joe's or anyone else's, but it's fun to put them together.

I live in football country, so nobody I know cares much for college hoops. But I go to the tournament whenever it's near my home, and now I'm going to see how I do projecting the brackets. I try to be unbiased. For me the fun is less about ranking the teams and more about solving the puzzle of placing them in the bracket. 

I also love fantasy football (which may find its way into this blog at times as well), Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings (yes, you can like that stuff AND sports!).