Welcome to Championship Week. If your favorite team hasn't locked up a tourney bid yet, keep some Tums handy by the remote the next few days.
Upsets will inevitably prevail during conference tournaments this week, including a few unexpected teams that rise up and steal an automatic berth. Which puts that much more pressure on the current bubble teams to add some more quality wins of their own this week.
As of today, I believe the top 38 teams on my seed list -- Kentucky through Oregon -- have locked up a bid. Nine other teams currently on the right side of the bubble -- Indiana, Ole Miss, Purdue, Temple, Colorado State, Boise State, Texas, Davidson and BYU -- still need to beat at least one top-50 opponent this week to feel secure on Sunday.
Nearly everyone else needs to earn an automatic berth, save for a "first four out" team like UCLA that could play its way in by knocking off a top-five Arizona team in the Pac-12 semifinals.
I'll be updating this column daily between now and Sunday and providing quick analysis on Twitter and on FOX Sports 1 throughout the week. Enjoy the tourneys.
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Editor's note: The bracket sets up as East vs. South, Midwest vs. West. It's based on games played through March 8. Teams that have secured official automatic bids are listed in ALL CAPS and denoted by the conference they won in parenthesis. Projected automatic berths (*) go to the current No. 1 seed in each conference tournament (or highest remaining seed).
Selection Sunday is March 15.
| East Region (Syracuse) | ||
| Seed | Team | Location |
| 1 | Duke (ACC) | at Charlotte |
| 16 | NORTH FLORIDA* (won Atlantic Sun) | |
| 8 | VCU (A-10) | |
| 9 | LSU (SEC)
|
|
| 4 | NORTHERN IOWA* (won MVC)
|
at Jacksonville |
| 13 | Wofford* (Southern)
|
|
| 5 | Butler (Big East)
|
|
| 12 | Davidson* (A-10) | |
| 6 | Utah (Pac-12)
|
at Pittsburgh |
| 11 | Boise State* (MWC) | |
| 3 | Maryland (Big Ten) | |
| 14 | NC Central* (MEAC)
|
|
| 7 | SMU* (AAC) | at Omaha |
| 10 | Indiana (Big Ten)
|
|
| 2 | Kansas* (Big 12) | |
| 15 | William & Mary* (Colonial) |
