Bracketology: Indiana Still Alive, and Creighton Wins a Big One

Here are the projections for the start of the final week of the regular season. These are my estimates of Selection Sunday resumes, including conference tournaments, though with only a couple of games remaining before tourney play for most big conference teams, the opportunities are dwindling.

This was a big weekend for some mid-majors and teams near the bubble. Utah State solidified their tournament positioning with a win over Nevada. Central Florida got a huge win at Houston to move up the pecking order and very likely in. And then, two teams that had been in free fall earlier in 2019 got some big wins that have them right on the cut line.

Creighton won at Marquette, to earn their biggest win of the year. The Blue Jays were already near the Top 50 in Net Ranking, but had not gotten enough big Quadrant 1 wins. That changed, and I’ve got them now in Dayton. If they win the next two at home I think they are on the right side of the bubble heading to the Big East tourney.

Meanwhile, Indiana got a season sweep of Michigan State. The Hoosiers are going to be a complete guess on how the committee will view them. The NET ranking and quality wins will have them in the field. The overall record and total number of losses would not. But with six Quadrant 1 wins, I think they get in–if they can finish the next two games (at Illinois, vs. Rutgers). But given the up-and-down year, that is far from certain. Still, they are squarely back on the bubble.

At the top of the bracket, Tennessee’s win over Kentucky coupled with Michigan State’s loss has re-shuffled the final top seed and ordering of the 2-seed line. That final top seed may not be decided until Selection Sunday.

Here are my overall brackets:

And here are the team projected rank and seed list, with Quadrant 1 projections through Selection Sunday: