Bracketology 2024:Houston, Purdue, UConn, and UNC land No. 1 seeds in the final field of 68 projection

East Region (Boston)

1.) UConn vs. 16.) Wagner/Howard

8.) Boise State vs. 9.) Texas

5.) Wisconsin vs. 12.) James Madison

4.) Duke vs. 13.) Charleston

6.) Texas Tech vs. 11.) Oregon

3.) Kentucky vs. 14.) Colgate

7.) Saint Mary's vs. 10.) Florida Atlantic

2.) Iowa State vs. 15.) Saint Peter's

The defending champs, UConn won the Big East tournament by dispatching Marquette and now turn their attention to trying to become the first back-to-back champions since Florida in 2006-7. With the win, UConn now has 31 wins entering the tournament and if it wasn’t for the nine quad-four wins, the Huskies would have challenged Purdue for the tournament’s overall No. 1 seed. Rest assured though Dan Hurley couldn’t care less about any of that. The only goal for the Huskies is to be the top dog once again.

The East region is the region that is full of non-power schools that pose a threat to those that are seeded higher. The No. 7 and No. 8 seeds are Saint Mary’s and Boise State respectively, the Gaels enter the tournament as WCC champs after knocking off Gonzaga. Randy Bennett’s squad has figured out their issues from earlier in the year and has gone 23-2 in their last 25 games. Also in this region are automatic qualifiers Colgate, James Madison, and Charleston who could all pull off the upset.

In the East Region, the No. 14 seed is the Colgate Raiders who dominated the Patriot League to the tune of finishing six games clear of the field. Matt Langel’s team has won their fifth regular-season title since 2019 and will be making their fifth tournament appearance in the same timeframe. Two of those losses were seven-point defeats to Wisconsin and Arkansas. The Raiders hang their hat on their defense where they rank top-30 in effective field goal defense and allow opponents to shoot just 29% from beyond the arc.