Bracketology 2023: Clemson, Illinois, and NC State among biggest winners

This article focuses on the biggest Bracketology winners of the past week, since this past Monday. Plenty of NCAA Basketball programs achieved good results in enhancing their respective resumes when it comes to either seeding or on the bubble.

One team that has a case to be a “winner” was Kentucky, who went on the road on Saturday and defeated No. 5 Tennessee. The problem is that just a few days prior, that same team lost a Quad 4 game at home against South Carolina. So overall, it was a wash for the program.

Here are 10 teams who definitely were a “winner” this week in Bracketology.

NC State Wolfpack

After splitting games between Duke and Clemson in the week prior, the Wolfpack’s tough stretch continued with a road game at Virginia Tech and at home against Miami. And beating the Hokies, they had a lead for most of the game against the Hurricanes before being forced to overtime on Saturday.

But thanks to 20 points from Terquavion Smith and a combined 30 points and 18 rebounds from Ernest Ross and D.J. Burns off the bench, NC State got an 83-81 win over arguably the best win in the ACC.

The Wolfpack are on the right side of the bubble and with a NET ranking in the top 30, should feel good about where they stand after these two victories.

Creighton Bluejays

After road losses to both Xavier and UConn, Creighton has been running out of time to find signature wins to enhance its resume, with an overall record of just 9-8. But with great metrics and just one bad loss to BYU, they still have a good shot if they can just land a few key wins in Big East play.

They found one against Providence, winning at home, 73-67. Three players had at least 19 points for the Bluejays, led by Ryan Kalkbrenner with 21 on 7/9 shooting from the field. They took advantage of a Friars’ squad missing a couple of rotation players but credit to Creighton for pulling off the needed win to be on the bubble.