It was not a very good weekend for the top of the bracket. Well, it was fine for the very top where the top six teams won. After that, it was a mess with 11 of the next 14 teams lost.
As I like to say, when everyone loses, nobody loses. When there is that big of a pileup of losses, the seed movements are not very dramatic. Only Michigan State, one of the big winners, moved up two-seed lines. All of the other seed changes were just one line up or down. Only half of the 14 teams moved at all.
Bracketology top seeds
Check out Palm’s bracket and full field of 68 at the Bracketology hub.
Illinois is 23rd in the NET this morning at 17-11 and looks like a team that is comfortably in the field. I have them as a No. 8 seed. However, the Illini are coming off a 43-point loss to Duke in a nonconference game. That is their third straight loss, all to top 10 teams in the bracket, but their tournament résumé is starting to show some strain. They are down to 11-11 vs the top three quadrants, which is not a problem yet. Their remaining schedule is home games vs. Iowa and Purdue sandwiched around a road game at Michigan. Losing two of three could mean the Illini need a win or two in the Big Ten Tournament. I am not worried for them yet or I would have them on the bubble, but a loss to Iowa would put them there.
New to the bracket are Indiana, coming off a second-half surge to beat Purdue, and Arkansas, which picked up a big win at home over Missouri. Dropping out are Texas and Georgia. Those three SEC teams keep shuffling in and out of the bracket among themselves.
Adjustments for bracket rules
There are a few unusual things in this bracket. Not surprisingly, one of those involves the SEC. There are still three SEC teams on the top line of the bracket, but also two more as No. 4 seeds. That means there is one region where two SEC teams could meet as early as the Sweet 16. Ideally, we could…
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