Bracketology 2019: Way-too-early look at a potential NCAA Tournament bracket

East Region

(1) Duke vs. (16) Colgate/Wagner

(8) Washington vs. (9) Nebraska

(4) Kansas State vs. (13) Northeastern

(5) Mississippi State vs. (12) New Mexico State

(6) Butler vs. (11) Notre Dame/Texas A&M

(3) Michigan State vs. (14) Northern Kentucky

(7) TCU vs. (10) UCF

(2) Tennessee vs. (15) Rider

Duke’s recruiting class is crazy. I won’t spend too much time talking about the Blue Devils because I am sure there will be plenty of content on them throughout the offseason. Yet, on paper, they should have one of the best rosters in the country next season. Coach K has enough talent to reach the Final Four but there are still a ton of moving pieces with this team. Duke will be a preseason top-5 team in the country.

In similar fashion to Auburn, who I wrote about earlier, Tennessee returns a lot of their roster from 2017-18. They received a No. 3 seed in the 2018 NCAA Tournament and they could move up with another year of experience. This is a team that could potentially be hurt by the NBA Draft but it is likely that the majority of players come back for another season. Rick Barnes’ roster is good enough to win the SEC.

Five at-large teams in this region did not play in the 2018 NCAA Tournament: Washington, Nebraska, Mississippi State, Notre Dame, and UCF. All of these teams have plenty of returning talent and were close to making the field this past season. It is never easy to take the next step from the NIT to the Big Dance but these teams all seem to have good odds.