Bracketology 2020: Louisville, Ohio State headline early projected field

Feast Week is still in full effect but how about a Black Friday edition of bracketology? Here is how the early projected field is shaping up.

Is it still way too early for bracketology? Yes, it probably is, but that doesn’t make creating early-season brackets any less thought-provoking. After seemingly endless offseason days, the last few weeks have finally provided fans and analysts alike the opportunity to watch every team in action. Programs around the country have already begun to show signs of being surprises, both positively and negatively, and that is bound to continue over the next few months.

Selection Sunday is still several months in the future, but there is no time like the present to begin talking about the postseason. After all, the selection committee will definitely consider all of the results over the last few weeks when making their final decisions on the field and their seeding later in the season. With regard to my credentials in bracketology, this will be my fifth season publically posting my projected field throughout the season. It is always interesting to watch how bracketology fields shift from November through February.

Considering the small sample size of play and lack of an early-season NET to this point, many of the selections/seedings in this projected field are based on the eye test. While boasting strong wins, high metric ratings, and great records certainly played a significant role, how teams have succeeded on both ends was also considered. Furthermore, some weight was given to preseason expectations, albeit to a lesser extent than the previous qualifications.

This is meant as a “snapshot” of what the field might look like at this moment but there is far more subjectivity now than there will be later in the season as data points are relatively scarce. Still, bracketology is meant as a discussion exercise at its core, so let’s just ignore any more introduction and dive right into my first in-season projected field for the 2019-20 campaign.

Please Note: This field was created and the article was written prior to the finishes Arizona-Pepperdine and San Diego State-Creighton on Nov. 28, both of which have potential bracketology implications.