Bracketology 2021: Illinois, Iowa, and Baylor among big winners

Oregon

We’ve said it many times during these pieces this season but we’ll say it again one more time: the Pac-12 has been a struggle in recent years. This season has produced a few competitive teams, though none exactly seem to be a national title threat at this point. As the season has gone on, the NCAA Tournament resumes of some of these teams have been significantly lessened, though the play of Oregon has been solid to say the least.

The Ducks, the most recent Pac-12 Final Four team back in 2017, got two nice wins at home this week. Chris Duarte had a nice 22-point, 7-rebound game on Monday as the Ducks dispatched Arizona by 11 points. They got another nice win on Wednesday, knocking off a UCLA team that was recently ranked, coming back from a small halftime deficit at home.

Oregon sits at 18-5, with a very satisfactory 13-4 mark in Pac-12 play. They played some absolutely horrific ball back in late January, but their schedule was erratic due to the pandemic, so it’s excusable. Recently, they’ve won nine of ten, including a sweep of Arizona to go with wins over Colorado and now UCLA.

With a win on Sunday against Oregon State (which is not a given), the Ducks would secure the 1-seed in the Pac-12 Tournament. This Oregon squad will make the NCAA Tournament, but are they the team that could go furthest from the league? The two Los Angeles schools have been potent at times this year; can someone from this league compete for glory during March Madness?

We’ve looked closely at ten winners from the past week and how their bracketology has been affected. The NCAA Tournament is extremely close; which teams will stand out in their final week to make an impact?