Bracketology 2020 Projected Field: Ohio State on top, Gonzaga proving

Finals Week is here but teams across the nation have made their pitches to be included in the projected field. Ohio State headlines the newest bracketology.

Is it still too early to talk about bracketology? Yes, it probably is. But that doesn’t make early-season fields any less intriguing. The projected bracket is bound to change tremendously over the next few months but these fields are an excellent way of recapping how teams have performed to this point in the year and where they stand in the national rankings.

As fans have already seen throughout the first month of this season, there have been plenty of teams that have already positively (Butler, Stanford, Dayton, etc.) and negatively (Syracuse, Wisconsin, Providence, etc.) surprised compared to preseason expectations.

With the opening release of the NET arriving on Dec. 16th, there is also about to be a new set of data available to analyze for the projected field. As this will only be the second year in use for the NCAA’s own metric, it will be interesting to see how things are shaking out from their computer. To this point in the year, I am still putting a heavier emphasis on my own personal eye test and preseason expectations compared to straight computer metrics and resumes.

There simply haven’t been enough games to rely on the latter to form a coherent bracket yet. By the beginning of January, though, it is reasonable to expect that baked-in preseason expectations will no longer have an effect on systems such as KenPom and the NET will have worked out its own kinks. Considering each team has only played 8-14 games so far this season, there is only so much data to work with.

With that introductory information out of the way, though, let’s dive into this week’s edition of my bracketology projected field. This piece is updated prior to the games played on December 13th, 2019.