This year we'll see 9 AQ’s across the conferences. AQ of course stands for automatic qualification, which means if you win a conference tournament that gets an AQ, you will automatically be selected to the NCAA bracket. Every conference has an AQ this year besides the ACC, as they do not hit the requirements with only 5 teams. On the podcast, we'll definitely have sleepers that will rattle this bracket around, but for the sake of this selection process, lets use the favorites in each conference. Important reminder: This is not a prediction of the bracket, this is the bracket as we see it now if the season ended today.
- AQ for American East: Vermont
- AQ for ASUN: Utah
- AQ for Atlantic 10: St. Joes
- AQ for Big East: Georgetown
- AQ for Big Ten: Maryland
- AQ for CAA: Delaware
- AQ for Ivy: Cornell
- AQ for MAAC: Manhattan
- AQ for Patriot: Army
Now that our 9 AQ favorites are selected, our job is to pick the 9 next best teams that have the best overall resume. Lets call the last 4 teams selected out of these 9 our “Last 4”. After that, the next four teams that are just on the outside looking in we will put into our “Next 4” list. That's just bracketology basics there.
- At Larges: Notre Dame, Virginia, Duke, Penn State, Johns Hopkins
- Last 4 (In): Rugters, Villanova, Denver, North Carolina
- Next 4 (Out): Syracuse, Jacksonville, Michigan, Loyola
Just like that, we have our 18 teams selected. Next, lets seed them 1 through 18. The teams seeded 15-18 will be selected to play in the play in games, where the winner of the 16 vs. 17 matchup will take on the overall 1 seed, and the winner of the 15 vs. 18 matchup will take on the overall 2 seed. Then voilà! Our bracket is complete:
As I already said before, make sure to listen to new episodes of Crease Crankers each week as we break down this potential bracket, and try and predict who will be shaking up this bracket in the coming weeks as the season nears its end.