Bracketology: Shifting on the top line in the projected field after crazy week
West Region
(1) Purdue vs. (16) Radford
(8) Nevada vs. (9) St. Mary’s
(4) TCU vs. (13) East Tennessee State
(5) Texas A&M vs. (12) Missouri State
(6) Creighton vs. (11) Georgia
(3) Arizona State vs. (14) Louisiana
(7) Rhode Island vs. (10) Florida
(2) Duke vs. (15) Montana.
Yes, you read that correctly. It is the Purdue Boilermakers who have replaced Michigan State on the top line in early January. Matt Painter’s team might not be as highly-ranked in the AP poll as other teams but their collection of wins are some of the best in the nation. Despite suffering losses to Tennessee and Western Kentucky in the Battle 4 Atlantis Tournament, the Boilermakers have wins over Arizona, Butler, Louisville, Marquette, and Maryland. What is even more impressive is that the win over Louisville was the only one played in front of their home crowd.
With two bad losses to NC State and Boston College on the resume, Duke had to be dropped from the No. 1 line. The Blue Devils may still be one of the four most talented teams in the country but they have not done enough to remain a top seed right now. The team does hold wins over Michigan State, Florida State, Florida, and Texas, but the rigorous ACC play coming up will test Coach K’s young team led by Marvin Bagley III and Grayson Allen.
Related Story: Duke falls to NC State - Road games an issue?
Much like the other highly-ranked teams this week, Arizona dropped a game that they shouldn’t have. Bobby Hurley’s team had to go on the road into the high elevation of Colorado over the past seven days and they left with a grim defeat. The team did bounce back nicely to stave off another upset by Utah later in the week but they dropped from the top line down to a No. 3 seed this week.
Texas schools handle the next two seeds in this region with TCU (No. 4) and Texas A&M (No. 5). Both of these schools are in a bit of a rocky stretch right now but they are still in solid shape overall. The Horned Frogs (Big 12) and the Aggies (SEC) both play in difficult conferences and it is how they respond to difficult stretches of games that will be important moving forward.
In the mid-major world, Nevada of the Mountain West and Rhode Island of the Atlantic 10 find their ways into this region as their conference’s automatic bids. It is a testament to both of their seasons so far that they would find themselves in the NCAA Tournament bracket right now even if they did not take the automatic bid.