With college football closing out its season Monday after the national championship game, it’s time for the sports world to pay closer attention to college hoops. And with that I will now have my weekly bracket every Monday to project the field of 68 for the NCAA tournament.

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Some thoughts about this week’s bracket:

The top three teams on the one line are set. Duke, Michigan and Kansas are locked in on the top line for now.

However, Sunday the news broke of the injury to KU’s Udoka Azubuike. In a crushing blow to the Jayhawks, Azubuike will be lost for the remainder of the season. So we will have to keep an eye on how KU adapts to his absence.

And it’s worth noting at this point, my bracket projections are not predictive, but rather if the season were to end today what would the field look like. Certainly, the selection committee will view Kansas on two fronts: one with Udoka, and one without him. If there is a significant fall-off in the Jayhawks’ performance, look for KU to slide down the bracket very quickly.

The fourth number one seed is Tennessee. It was a very close call over Virginia and Gonzaga. With the Bulldogs in conference play from here on out, rarely do they get challenged to the degree that Tennessee and Virginia do.

However, watch closely next weekend when Gonzaga travels to San Francisco to face the Dons, their toughest competition in the WCC. A win in that one and the Zags may run the table and be difficult to keep off the one line in the final bracket.

With Nevada losing big at New Mexico on Saturday, the Wolfpack dropped to a three seed with Oklahoma moving up to the two line. Mississippi State moved to a four seed thanks to losses by Ohio State and Marquette.

The middle of the bracket continued to ebb and flow as is usually the case this time of year. St. John’s, Minnesota, Iowa State and Alabama all had big wins moving them up the bracket.

A note about the automatic bids. In each conference, the team currently leading the league standings was given the automatic bid. Ties were broken using NET (NCAA Evaluation Tool), giving the auto bid to the team with the highest NET ranking. This caused the field to lose three at large bids as automatics previously held by Nevada, Gonzaga and VCU were given to other teams who now lead their leagues.

This resulted in Cincinnati moving to the wrong side of the bubble. The Bearcats have a weak resume and need some quality wins to move back into the field.

Another team that is just outside the field is Creighton, but the Bluejays have two huge games this week against Marquette and Villanova. Two wins on their home court and the Jays will surely be in the field next week.

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LAST FOUR IN

Butler, Kansas St., VCU, UCF

FIRST FOUR OUT

Cincinnati, Ole Miss, St. Louis, Creighton

NEXT FOUR OUT

Missouri, Arkansas, Washington, Vanderbilt

 

CONFERENCES WITH MULTIPLE BIDS

Big Ten (10)

ACC (8)

Big 12 (7)

SEC (6)

Big East (5)

Pac-12 (2)

AAC (2)

A-10 (2)

Mountain West (2)

WCC (2)

 

From here until the end of February I will have a new updated bracket posted every Monday. In March there will be new brackets several times a week. Follow my updates throughout the season @tkbrackets.