Following the Bracketologists
For those who can’t get enough Bracketology between now and the Selection Shows, The Bracket Project ranks bracketologists based on their past performance in projecting the tournament field. There’s a list of 133 experienced bracketologists and 62 relatively new bracketologists from which you can discover variations on where Michigan is predicted to land in the tournament field.
The top-ranked bracketologist’s most-recent prediction has Michigan as the lowest one seed playing Rick Pitino’s 16th-seeded Iona Gaels in the opening round of the Midwest Region and then the winner of BYU and St. Bonaventure. ESPN's Joe Lunardi has Michigan playing the winner of Norfolk State and Appalachian State in the opening round of "Region 4" and then the winner of Missouri and Virginia Tech. Jerry Palm at CBS has Michigan playing Oral Roberts in the opening round of the East Region and then the winner of Florida and North Carolina.
Despite Michigan’s recent slippage and the loss of Isaiah Livers, Jr. to a stress fracture in his foot for an indefinite period of time (depending on the extent of the injury, it could require rest for from two to eight weeks), none of the bracketologists expect Michigan to be seeded as anything but the last one seed.
SEC regular season and tourney championship for Alabama would have to be devalued due to a historically crap Kentucky team, no?
Yeah, Kentucky not being dominant has made the SEC a weaker conference this season. It seems most people still feel Michigan will be the last #1 seed in the NCAA tournament.
Alabama has 2 very very bad losses on a neutral floor that should disqualify them from a 1 seed in my opinion. When we’re talking about deciphering between the top 4 teams and the top 8 teams, things like that are and should be deciding factors.
Michigan only has 1 bad loss and it was on the road. Every team except Gonzaga has that blemish.
Michigan getting some revenge against Rick Pitino would be a fitting start to the 2021 tourney.
Think we beat him in 2018 NCAA tourney - the last game he coached at Louisville, right?
YES.
That's correct (I think it was 2017, though).
IIRC, that was a game where we were down pretty big at halftime and Big Moe Wagner just went apeshit to lead us to a win -- as underdogs, also, if I recall.
Thanks for jogging my memory!
Everybody should root for Bama these last 10 min. If they win, pretty sure it will be Bama #2 with Michigan #1 in one region. That’s a solid draw for us. As the worst #1, we aren’t getting the last #2, don’t care about conferences. (7 teams on lines 1-2 now, Zags, Illinois, Baylor, Michigan, Iowa, OSU, Bama...last 2 is up in the air). No rules they can’t have both 1 and 2 in same region. So if Bama isn’t with us, see OSU or Iowa. Likely OSU with win yesterday moving over Iowa. I am not scared of OSU, but would rather it be Bama and a team that doesn’t know us. Sec sucks this year.
The NCAA bracketing principles are to place teams in the same conference from the top 4 seed lines into different regions. There is no way you’ll see a 1 and a 2 from the same conference. And if Purdue is a 4 seed, they will get placed with a 2 from the B1G to avoid a likely intraconference sweet 16 matchup. I think Michigan was going to end up with Bama regardless, with Illinois getting the other non-B1G 2 seed. OSU will draw Baylor with a win today or Gonzaga with a loss.
Show me where they say this? Usually it’s 1 and 8, 2 and 7, 3 and 6, and 4 and 5. Especially this year where they said regions won’t matter due proximity to home with it all in Indy. Usually they will avoid it, but this is odd year with Big Ten having 4 of top 7.
How the field of 68 teams is picked for March Madness
Each of the top four teams selected from a conference shall be placed in different regions if they are seeded on the first four lines.
Teams from the same conference shall not meet prior to the regional final if they played each other three or more times during the regular season and conference tournament.
Teams from the same conference shall not meet prior to the regional semifinals if they played each other twice during the regular season and conference tournament.
Teams from the same conference may play each other as early as the second round if they played no more than once during the regular season and conference tournament.
If possible, rematches of non-conference regular-season games should be avoided in the First Four and first round.
Any principle can be relaxed if two or more teams from the same conference are among the last four at-large seeded teams participating in the First Four.
A few months back if you had told me Michigan wins the 2021 Regular season BANNER and advances to the Sweet 16 I would have told you Oh Hell yeah thats a successfull season..I stand by that. We need a favorable 8/9 matchup...Il take St Bonnies thank you very much