Preseason Bracketology: It’s never too early to look at the full field of 68

Any college basketball fan’s day gets better when he sees something in bracket form. So even though preseason bracketology matters exactly not at all, it’s fun!

We released our preseason Top 25 last week, so you have a pretty good idea of who you’ll see on the top lines. But now it’s time to take a look at the whole postseason picture entering the start of the year. I used KenPom’s preseason rankings to decide conference autobids (in italics). That’s far from a foolproof method, but it’ll do for our purposes here.

So without further ado, here’s the full field of 68 with some notes and analysis on the bracketing madness below.

		WEST			SOUTH
San Diego	1	Arizona		1	Duke	Charlotte
	16	UC Irvine		16	NC Central/Texas Southern
	8	SMU		8	Rhode Island
	9	Texas		9	Utah
Boise	5	Saint Mary’s		5	Seton Hall	Dallas
	12	Middle Tennessee		12	Charleston
	4	Notre Dame		4	Minnesota
	13	Yale		13	Vermont
Detroit	6	UCLA		6	Alabama	Pittsburgh
	11	Missouri/Marquette		11	Wisconsin/Creighton
	3	North Carolina		3	West Virginia
	14	Illinois State		14	Belmont
Nashville	7	Texas A&M		7	Baylor	Nashville
	10	Oklahoma		10	Maryland
	2	Cincinnati		2	Kentucky
	15	Florida Gulf Coast		15	Ohio
		EAST			MIDWEST
Wichita	1	Kansas		1	Wichita State	Dallas
	16	Montana/St. Francis PA		16	Stephen F. Austin
	8	Virginia Tech		8	Virginia
	9	Oregon		9	Texas Tech
Boise	5	Miami		5	Xavier	Wichita
	12	Oakland		12	Bucknell
	4	Purdue		4	Louisville
	13	UNC Asheville		13	Georgia Southern
Charlotte	6	Providence		6	Gonzaga	San Diego
	11	San Diego State		11	Butler
	3	Florida		3	USC
	14	Mercer		14	New Mexico State
Pittsburgh	7	Northwestern		7	TCU	Detroit
	10	Vanderbilt		10	Michigan
	2	Villanova		2	Michigan State
	15	Iona		15	South Dakota State

Last four in: Marquette, Wisconsin, Creighton, Missouri

Whispering distance: Georgia Tech, Iowa, St. Bonaventure, VCU

Talking distance: Arkansas, Temple, Houston, Arizona State

Shouting distance: Penn State, Nevada, Oregon State, Oklahoma State

Bracket notes:

—The FBI investigation is of course hanging over the coming season like a giant stormcloud. We’re already seeing teams being extremely cautious by suspending potentially problematic players. The biggest teams to keep an eye on regarding this are Louisville (Brian Bowen), Alabama (Collin Sexton) and Georgia Tech (Tadric Jackson and Josh Okogie).

—Even when Michael Porter Jr. committed to Mizzou in March, I figured the Tigers for a NIT team. But since then, Cuonzo Martin has also gotten commitments from Jeremiah Tilmon and Jontay Porter, Michael’s 6’10” younger brother. Mizzou is young but talented enough to sneak into this year’s field.

—Funky bracketing rules didn’t cause any major changes this time around when turning the 1-68 seed list into an actual bracket, but if you’re interested, the NCAA makes its principles and procedures available here.

Bids by conference:

ACC — 7

Big 12 — 7

Big East — 7

Big Ten — 7

SEC — 6

Pac-12 — 5

AAC — 3

WCC — 2