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

“Bubble” and Bids by Conference

Because of how early into the offseason this edition of Bracketology is being released, the “bubble” just consists of the list of teams that I gave the most consideration to. At this point in the year, everybody deserves more than just a passing glance about the roster returning and recruits/transfers coming in. In order to construct the bracket in this article, I went through plenty of teams but here is a look at those that were the closest to making my field.

If you want to call it a “bubble” go for it, but here are the first 10 teams I have on the outside looking in after zero games played (in no order): USC, Vanderbilt, Arizona State, Colorado, Alabama, Baylor, Creighton, Arkansas, Houston, and Oklahoma State.

In this early form of Bracketology, there are no “bid-stealers.” Because of this, a high proportion of the at-large bids were awarded to teams from major conferences. While hopefully a trend appears soon that allows more mid-majors at-large bids but we are yet to see the committee change their approach in that regard. Here is how many bids each multi-bid conference received.

• ACC: 10
• Big Ten: 8
• SEC: 8
• Big 12: 6
• Big East: 5
• American: 3
• Pac-12: 3

Next: Busting Brackets' early 2019 top-25

This is obviously subject to change in the next few months and even more so once the season actually gets started. There is absolutely no way that this will be correct come March of 2019. However, you guys asked for it and it was a fun exercise to go through. If your team did not make this projected field, don’t worry because there is a whole season coming in a few months that will make things easier to decipher.

Have something to say about this bracket? You can reach out with questions or comments to me on Twitter: @hardwiredsports.