Early Projections For This Years NCAA Basketball Tournament

March Madness is quickly approaching so here are some early projections of the 65 schools that will make up this year’s NCAA Tournament, from CBS SportsLine’s college basketball guru Gary Parrish. Gary has this list plus some conference by conference analysis HERE.

By the way, RightFielders will have a bracket contest for the NCAA tournament, so bookmark the site now, and be ready to strain your brain on the Monday immediately following Selection Sunday which takes place on March 11, 6 p.m. ET, will be televised on CBS and hosted by Katie Couric (I was just kidding about the Katie Couric thing)

FYI: The Ivy League regular-season champion earns an automatic bid, as do the winners of the 30 conference tournaments. At-large bids are handed out to 34 additional schools, based on the strength of their regular seasons
(which takes into account won-loss record, conference mark and strength of schedule).

NOTE: Bids per conference in parenthesis.

AMERICA EAST (1)
Projected champ: Vermont
At-large: None
Bubble: None

ACC (5)
Projected champ: North Carolina
At-large: Duke, Florida State, Maryland, Boston College
Bubble: Virginia, Clemson, Georgia Tech

ATLANTIC SUN (1)
Projected champ: Belmont
At-large: None
Bubble: None

ATLANTIC 10 (2)
Projected champ: Xavier
At-large: Dayton
Bubble: Massachusetts, Saint Louis, George Washington

BIG EAST (8)
Projected champ: Pittsburgh
At-large: Marquette, Connecticut, Syracuse, Villanova, Louisville, Notre Dame, Providence
Bubble: Georgetown, West Virginia

BIG SKY (1)
Projected champ: Northern Arizona
At-large: None
Bubble: None

BIG SOUTH (1)
Projected champ: Winthrop
At-large: None
Bubble: None

BIG TEN (6)
Projected champ: Ohio State
At-large: Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Michigan State, Purdue
Bubble: None

BIG 12 (5)
Projected champ: Kansas
At-large: Texas A&M, Texas, Oklahoma State, Missouri
Bubble: Texas Tech

BIG WEST (1)
Projected champ: Long Beach State
At-large: None
Bubble: None

COLONIAL (1)
Projected champ: Old Dominion
At-large: None
Bubble: None

CONFERENCE USA (1)
Projected champ: Memphis
At-large: None
Bubble: None

HORIZON LEAGUE (1)
Projected champ: Butler
At-large: None
Bubble: None

IVY LEAGUE (1)
Projected champ: Penn
At-large: None
Bubble: None
Three of Penn’s losses are to UTEP, Syracuse and Villanova.

MAAC (1)
Projected champ: Marist
At-large: None
Bubble: None

MAC (1)
Projected champ: Akron
At-large: None
Bubble: None

MEAC (1)
Projected champ: Delaware State.
At-large: None
Bubble: None

MID-CONTINENT (1)
Projected champ: Southern Utah
At-large: None
Bubble: None

MISSOURI VALLEY (5)
Projected champ: Wichita State
At-large: Creighton, Southern Illinois, Missouri State, Northern Iowa
Bubble: None

MOUNTAIN WEST (1)
Projected champ: Air Force
At-large: None
Bubble: San Diego State, UNLV

NORTHEAST (1)
Projected champ: Sacred Heart
At-large: None
Bubble: None

OHIO VALLEY (1)
Projected champ: Samford
At-large: None
Bubble: None

PAC-10 (5)
Projected champ: UCLA
At-large: Arizona, Washington, Oregon, Washington State
Bubble: Stanford

PATRIOT LEAGUE (1)
Projected champ: Bucknell
At-large: None
Bubble: None

SEC (6)
Projected champ: Florida
At-large: Kentucky, Tennessee, LSU, Alabama, Arkansas
Bubble: None
.

SOUTHERN (1)
Projected champ: Davidson
At-large: None
Bubble: None

SOUTHLAND (1)
Projected champ: Northwestern State
At-large: None
Bubble: None

SUN BELT (1)
Projected champ: Western Kentucky
At-large: None
Bubble: None

SWAC (1)
Projected champ: Jackson State
At-large: None
Bubble: None

WAC (1)
Projected champ: Nevada
At-large: None
Bubble: Fresno State, Utah State

WEST COAST (1)
Projected champ: Gonzaga
At-large: None
Bubble: None

This entry was posted on December 15, 2006 at 12:09 am and is filed under March Madness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.