Bracketology 2023: Final projected field of 68 ahead of Selection Sunday
East Region (New York)
(1) Purdue vs. (16) Southeast Missouri State/Fairleigh Dickinson
(8) Arkansas vs. (9) Memphis
(5) Iowa State vs. (12) Oral Roberts
(4) Virginia vs. (13) Iona
(6) Creighton vs. (11) North Carolina State/Nevada
(3) Tennessee vs. (14) Grand Canyon
(7) Northwestern vs. (10) USC
(2) Texas vs. (15) Colgate
The East region is in New York and will be topped by Big Ten finalist the Purdue Boilermakers. There was a time not too long ago when Purdue was the overall No. 1 seed in the bracket. The reason for the fall down the seed list is that since beating Penn State on Feb. 1 they have gone just 6-4 entering the Big Ten finals. They do have five quad 1A wins, a strength of schedule at 23rd, and metrics that all rank in the top 10.
Other teams in this region include a couple that is different teams now that they are fully healthy. Both Arkansas and Creighton suffered injuries to significant players and will both be looking to live up to preseason expectations in the Big Dance. Arkansas’ highly-touted freshman Nick Smith, Jr. missed 19 games with a back injury, and while the Hogs have gone just 3-6 since his return, five of those losses have been by single digits. Creighton was on fire to begin the year and then center Ryan Kalkbrenner missed three games due to an illness and the Bluejays subsequently lost three straight illuminating Kalkbrenner’s importance. They seemingly righted the ship when he returned going 11-2 but ended the season going just 4-4 and look towards the tournament to get hot again.
The team I want to watch in this region is the team that came up one game short of the ACC tournament title after falling to Duke, the Virginia Cavaliers. Virginia was riding high since back-to-back games losses to Boston College and North Carolina until the loss to Duke. Now they have won four of their last five heading into Selection Sunday. Some things that are hurting Virginia are the three losses to non-tournament teams, BC, UNC, and Virginia Tech in league play and the fact that have just one quad 1 road win all year, over Michigan who won’t be in the field.
We all know about Virginia’s pace and defense that always makes them tough to play against, but the three-point shooting improvement from Armaan Franklin, Reece Beekman, and Kihei Clark, all shooting around 37% has been huge for the Hoos, despite the struggles they had in the ACC title game.