Long before “bracketology” became a buzzword and entered the vocabulary of even the most casual college basketball fans, CBS Sports editor Jerry Palm was projecting which teams would enter the NCAA Tournament field, where they would be chosen and with who could play. And with most of the conference tournaments already underway or coming up this weekend – often a big shift in hopes for the NCAA Tournament, particularly for top teams – Palm designed its latest NCAA Tournament key on Monday morning.
The result is a great view of where each team sits with less than a week until Selection Sunday. And in addition to the main middle teams, who can play well for most of the season, but see their post-season hopes dashed in their own conference tournaments, this represents a good approximation of how the key could be. A team that is currently designed as seed number 1, for example, will not drop multiple rows of seeds, even if they fight and lose at the opening of the conference tournament. A team could enter a hot race and potentially improve its seed line by one or two points, but neither team will go from eight to four seed (or vice versa) over the next week.
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With that in mind, here’s a look at Jerry Palm’s predicted support, along with our thoughts on possible matchups within him.
* Regions are usually designated by regional location: South, Midwest, East, etc. With all of this year’s games being played in Indianapolis, Palm separated each section of 16 teams by location; whether they would be played at Bankers Life Fieldhouse or Hinkle Fieldhouse, and then whether they would be region No. 1 or 2.