North Carolina falls out, Big Ten up to nine teams in new Bracketology

By definition, an amateur bracketologist is anyone other than the members of the actual selection committee attempting to project the NCAA Tournament field. This applies to us as well, of course, but we can at least take comfort in the fact that we are applying the NCAA men’s basketball committee’s principles with some degree of accuracy.

The committee released its preliminary look at the current top 16 seeds Saturday weekend, and with a couple of small deviations of a seed line it matched up well with our most recent projections.

So here is our updated look at the field reflecting the committee’s sneak preview as well as the most recent results from the weekend. Again, none of this is final with three weeks left in the season, but we can say we’re fairly confident that most of these teams in the upper quarter of the bracket have a good chance to stay there.

The No. 1 seeds remain unchanged from our last update, with defending champion Kansas solidifying its spot with Saturday’s huge rally against likely No. 2 seed Baylor. Alabama hangs on to the overall highest seed, and Houston and Purdue head the other regionals.

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It was a bad weekend for the ACC as North Carolina slides out of the play-in round following a loss at North Carolina State and Clemson also tumbles from the field thanks to an even worse loss to Louisville. Southern California is back in for now, along with Wisconsin to give the Big Ten the lead with nine in the field.

Last four in

Southern California, Memphis, West Virginia, Wisconsin.

First four out

North Carolina, Utah State, Penn State, Texas Tech.

Next four out

New Mexico, Clemson, Arizona State, Oregon.

Conference breakdown

Multi-bid leagues: Big Ten (9), Big 12 (8), SEC (8), ACC (5), Big East (5), Mountain West (3), Pac-12 (3), American Athletic (2), West Coast (2).