2024 Men's NCAA Tournament Bracket: Latest Projection of the Field of 68

As the loaded weekend slate of games in men's college basketball was just getting underway, the NCAA tournament selection committee revealed its "if the season ended today" top 16 teams for the bracket, with Purdue, Connecticut, Houston and Arizona as the No. 1 seeds.

But already, things have changed.

Then-No. 1 overall seed Purdue lost at Ohio State Sunday afternoon. No. 7 Marquette got destroyed by No. 2 Connecticut, No. 8 Kansas finally picked up a quality road win, No. 13 Auburn lost at home to Kentucky and No. 16 Wisconsin suffered yet another bad loss in its apparent quest to plummet as much as it possibly can in February.

None of those teams moved much (aside from Kentucky making a big jump), but just a heads up that the top 16 is a bit different from what we were told two days ago.

You'll see a lot of NET, RES and QUAL in the forthcoming analysis. NET is the NCAA Evaluation Tool, the backbone of the Quads data and the primary sorting metric the selection committee uses to select and seed the field. RES is the average ranking of the two resume metrics (KPI and SOR) and is more or less a measure of who you beat, regardless of scoring margin. QUAL is the average ranking of the two predictive metrics (BPI and KenPom) and is rooted in scoring margin and adjusted efficiencies. All three play a key role in determining the projected field.

The 32 automatic bids are determined by conference standings, which does result in one "bid thief" of sorts. South Florida (12-1 in AAC) would not be in the field today without that auto bid, which is reducing the size of the bubble by one. (And thank goodness, because the bubble is all sorts of ugly right now.)

With that out of the way, let's start with the full bracket before some brief commentary on the current state of the bubble and the top seed line. Following that, we have a full conference-by-conference rundown, highlighting some of the biggest changes from one week ago.

EAST REGION (BOSTON)

Brooklyn, NY
No. 1 Connecticut vs. No. 16 Colgate
No. 8 Texas vs. No. 9 Northwestern

Brooklyn, NY
No. 4 Auburn vs. No. 13 Yale
No. 5 Dayton vs. No. 12 Indiana State

Pittsburgh, PA
No. 3 Iowa State vs. No. 14 High Point
No. 6 Florida vs. No. 11 Nebraska

Charlotte, NC
No. 2 North Carolina vs. No. 15 Morehead State
No. 7 BYU vs. No. 10 Grand Canyon

MIDWEST REGION (DETROIT)

Indianapolis, IN
No. 1 Purdue vs. No. 16 Merrimack/Southern
No. 8 Washington State vs. No. 9 Nevada

Spokane, WA
No. 4 Creighton vs. No. 13 UC Irvine
No. 5 Texas Tech vs. No. 12 South Florida

Omaha, NE
No. 3 Baylor vs. No. 14 College of Charleston
No. 6 Clemson vs. No. 11 Mississippi State/Providence

Charlotte, NC
No. 2 Tennessee vs. No. 15 Oakland
No. 7 Utah State vs. No. 10 Virginia

SOUTH REGION (DALLAS)

Memphis, TN
No. 1 Houston vs. No. 16 Eastern Kentucky
No. 8 Colorado State vs. No. 9 Florida Atlantic

Spokane, WA
No. 4 Illinois vs. No. 13 Appalachian State
No. 5 Kentucky vs. No. 12 Samford

Memphis, TN
No. 3 Alabama vs. No. 14 Louisiana Tech
No. 6 Oklahoma vs. No. 11 Gonzaga/Ole Miss

Indianapolis, IN
No. 2 Marquette vs. No. 15 Quinnipiac
No. 7 Michigan State vs. No. 10 Boise State

WEST REGION (LOS ANGELES)

Salt Lake City, UT
No. 1 Arizona vs. No. 16 North Dakota/Norfolk State
No. 8 TCU vs. No. 9 New Mexico

Salt Lake City, UT
No. 4 San Diego State vs. No. 13 Akron
No. 5 Wisconsin vs. No. 12 McNeese State

Pittsburgh, PA
No. 3 Duke vs. No. 14 Vermont
No. 6 South Carolina vs. No. 11 Butler

Omaha, NE
No. 2 Kansas vs. No. 15 Eastern Washington
No. 7 Saint Mary's vs. No. 10 Texas A&M

1. Purdue Boilermakers (23-3, NET: 2, RES: 1.0, QUAL: 2.5)

2. Connecticut Huskies (24-2, NET: 4, RES: 4.0, QUAL: 3.0)

3. Houston Cougars (22-3, NET: 1, RES: 3.0, QUAL: 1.0)

4. Arizona Wildcats (20-5, NET: 3, RES: 5.5, QUAL: 3.5)

5. North Carolina Tar Heels (20-6, NET: 9, RES: 7.0, QUAL: 11.0)

During the Top 16 reveal, selection committee chairman Charles McClelland said all 12 committee members unanimously voted these top four teams in this exact order.

But if they held that vote again today—after Connecticut destroyed Marquette and after Purdue lost to Ohio State—it'd be much more of a debate for that No. 1 overall seed.

I went back and forth on it about 15 times Sunday afternoon before sticking with Purdue in light of its four neutral-site victories over teams that appeared in the top nine of the reveal. But it's very close, and Connecticut would probably pull ahead with a road win over Creighton Tuesday night.

Beyond that debate, Arizona still does not feel like anything close to a lock for a No. 1 seed, even though the Wildcats are clearly on a tier of their own at No. 4 overall right now, well behind Houston at No. 3, but a good bit ahead of North Carolina at No. 5.

Even if the Wildcats win out, they could get leapfrogged by North Carolina, Tennessee or Kansas/Baylor/Iowa State, each of whom will actually play a few more Q1 games between now and their conference tournament semifinals, unlike Arizona.

But until UNC wins at Virginia and Duke, until Tennessee knocks off Auburn and Alabama in succession two weeks from now or until Arizona takes another bad loss, there's really no debate.

Fifth-to-Last In: Nebraska Cornhuskers (18-8, NET: 50, RES: 38.0, QUAL: 43.5)—Will need at least one, maybe two more road wins.

Fourth-to-Last In: Mississippi State Bulldogs (17-8, NET: 37, RES: 35.5, QUAL: 35.5)—Neutral wins over Washington State and Northwestern have aged beautifully.

Third-to-Last In: Providence Friars (17-9, NET: 58, RES: 51.0, QUAL: 49.5)—Iffy metrics, but great home wins over Creighton, Marquette, Wisconsin.

Second-to-Last In: Gonzaga Bulldogs (19-6, NET: 23, RES: 53.5, QUAL: 19.5)—Crushed LMU and Pacific; win at Kentucky already looks stronger.

Last Team In: Ole Miss Rebels (19-6, NET: 64, RES: 22.0, QUAL: 70.5)—Narrowly avoided bad loss to Missouri; narrowly remain in field.

****CUT LINE****

First Team Out: Seton Hall Pirates (17-9, NET: 68, RES: 56.0, QUAL: 67.5)—Five Q1 wins, but terrible metrics; repeat of 2022 Rutgers?

Second Team Out: Drake Bulldogs (20-5, NET: 51, RES: 45.5, QUAL: 54.0)—Still hanging around; neutral win over Nevada doing heavy lifting.

Third Team Out: Cincinnati Bearcats (16-9, NET: 35, RES: 48.0, QUAL: 33.5)—Eked out win at UCF to remain on the cusp.

Fourth Team Out: Utah Utes (16-10, NET: 49, RES: 51.5, QUAL: 48.0)—Despite losing eight of 13, just can't eliminate the Utes.

Fifth Team Out: Villanova Wildcats (14-11, NET: 34, RES: 62.5, QUAL: 26.5)—Lots of losses, but 8-8 record vs. Q1/Q2 bears mentioning.

4 Teams in the Projected Field (by Overall Seed): 5. North Carolina, 12. Duke, 22. Clemson, 39. Virginia

Also Considered: Wake Forest, NC State, Pittsburgh

Biggest Change: Wake Forest blows two more opportunities

Every year, there's a team or two that passes the proverbial eye test, but just doesn't have enough quality wins to justify a spot in the field.

Last year, Rutgers and North Carolina were two of those teams. And this year, Wake Forest seems destined to fit that bill.

The Demon Deacons had two major opportunities on their plate this week, playing on the road against both Duke and Virginia. They put up a good fight in both games, never trailing by double digits in either one.

All for naught, though, as they took two more Ls, falling to 1-5 vs. Q1 and 4-9 overall against the top two Quadrants.

At this point, not only is Wake Forest not in, but it's not even a difficult decision to leave this team out.

They do have a home game against Duke coming up this Saturday, as well as a season-ending home game against Clemson, plus a road game against Virginia Tech in between. That's definitely one, possibly three more opportunities for Q1 wins before the start of the ACC tournament.

If they don't win the rematch with the Blue Devils, though, they're probably toast. And if they do beat Duke before turning around and losing to both the Hokies and the Tigers, that also might not be enough. (Though, we have seen several teams over the years controversially get into the field with little more than one win over Duke on their resume.)

9 Teams in the Projected Field (by Overall Seed): 3. Houston, 7. Kansas, 10. Baylor, 11. Iowa State, 19. Texas Tech, 24. Oklahoma, 28. BYU, 29. TCU, 32. Texas

Also Considered: Cincinnati, Kansas State

Biggest Change: BYU starting to slide

Despite ranking top 10 in the NET every day since it first debuted in early December, BYU did not appear in Saturday's Top 16 reveal.

In fact, the Cougars were not even mentioned as one of the three teams (Clemson, Creighton and Dayton) who were seriously considered for those final spots on the No. 4 seed line, leaving us to assume they entered Saturday at No. 20 overall (or worse) on the selection committee's seed list.

Then they went out and suffered by far their worst loss of the season at Oklahoma State in a game that wasn't close at any point in the final 30 minutes.

That was enough to bump BYU to No. 10 in the NET and to draw some serious scrutiny to this resume.

No, BYU hasn't fallen all the way to the bubble. But it's worth discussing that the Cougars have yet to win a game away from home against a team anywhere close to the at-large field and have just three total wins against quality opponents—vs. San Diego State, vs. Iowa State, vs. Texas.

Really, if it weren't for the NET ranking and great predictive metrics that they vigorously inflated against weak competition in nonconference play, is there any real difference between the Cougars and Nebraska right now? Three great home wins, two questionable losses, not much doing away from home and a weak NCSOS? Pretty similar.

BYU does have the NET and the predictives on its side, though, and that's going to count for something. But if the Cougars go 2-4 (or worse) down the stretch, they could still play their way onto the bubble.

5 Teams in the Projected Field (by Overall Seed): 2. Connecticut, 8. Marquette, 16. Creighton, 41. Butler, 44. Providence

Also Considered: Seton Hall, St. John's, Villanova

Biggest Change: Providence takes care of business at home

The Friars have been tiptoeing around the bubble for the better part of a month, but they did some light stepping in the right direction in the past week.

No, not the home win over DePaul on Saturday. That one was meaningless. If anything, only winning that game by 11 after letting the Blue Demons close the game on a 12-0 run actually hurt Providence's metrics a bit.

But the home win over St. John's last Tuesday was fairly large—both to push Providence toward/into the field and to push the Johnnies further out of the picture.

St. John's went on a 23-5 run over the final nine minutes of the first half, but the Friars pulled it together and rallied for a key win when Daniss Jenkins missed a pair of game-tying three-point attempts in the closing seconds.

It was only a Q2 win, but it was one of the six best wins of the season for a team that is now 7-9 against the top two Quadrants—with a bizarre complete lack of games against Q3.

Though they're in for now, they're going to need to go at least 3-2 the rest of the way in order to enter the Big East tournament in reasonable shape for a bid. And that means this week's game at Xavier is massive, because going 3-1 down the stretch against Marquette (road), Villanova (home), Georgetown (road) and Connecticut (home) is asking an awful lot.

For what it's worth, Providence could effectively eliminate both Xavier and Villanova from the at-large conversation by winning those games. Maybe Villanova would still have a pulse if it wins the road game against Connecticut one week prior to facing Providence, but best of luck to 'Nova in that one.

6 Teams in the Projected Field (by Overall Seed): 1. Purdue, 15. Illinois, 18. Wisconsin, 25. Michigan State, 33. Northwestern, 42. Nebraska

Also Considered: N/A

Biggest Change: Michigan State climbing to the brink of a lock to dance

It's been a while since Michigan State's embarrassing 4-5 start to the season.

Since then, the Spartans have gone 13-4, getting their results-based metrics back up in the vicinity of the NET and predictive metrics which have loved MSU all season long. At this point, they are top 30 across the board and have enough quality wins that it's almost impossible to envision them missing the field.

This past week could have undone all of the good Sparty had done over the previous two months. They've struggled away from home all season and had road games against Penn State and Michigan.

Losing either one would've been bad, and losing both would have been a disaster.

They held serve, though, beating the Nittany Lions by eight and holding the Wolverines scoreless over the final seven minutes for a 10-point victory over their in-state rival.

Coupled with a bunch of teams previously in the Nos. 6-8 seed range falling flat in the past seven days, those road wins were enough for Michigan State to ascend back up to the No. 7 seed line.

The Spartans have road games remaining against Purdue and Indiana, as well as home games against Iowa, Ohio State and Northwestern. If they lose at Purdue but win the other four, they should end up as a No. 6 or No. 7 seed. But don't go putting them into the field in permanent ink just yet. Things could get ugly again in a hurry if they lost to the Hawkeyes and Buckeyes this week—both of whom sort of, almost have new life after upsetting Wisconsin and Purdue this weekend.

6 Teams in the Projected Field (by Overall Seed): 13. San Diego State, 27. Utah State, 30. Colorado State, 35. New Mexico, 36. Nevada, 38. Boise State

Also Considered: N/A

Biggest Change: San Diego State separates from the pack

Even before San Diego State somewhat surprisingly landed at No. 14 in the Top 16 reveal, it was clear the Aztecs had created some separation from the great big logjam of Mountain West teams looking like No. 7-8 seeds.

After Friday night's home win over New Mexico, the Aztecs improved to 6-6 against the NET Top 50 with no losses outside of that group.

All six of their losses were true road games against teams presently projected for a No. 10 seed or better. And with nonconference wins away from home against Saint Mary's (neutral) and Gonzaga (road) that just keep looking better by the day, it's not like SDSU blew every opportunity it got.

The Aztecs do have one big game remaining, on the road against Utah State Tuesday night. If they can win that coinflip and take care of business the rest of the way in games they should win, getting up to the No. 2 seed line isn't completely out of the question here.

It wouldn't be the first time, either. SDSU got a No. 2 seed back in 2011, and it was all but certain to get at least a No. 2 seed—if not a No. 1 seed—in 2020.

For all the talk of Connecticut looking likely to become the first back-to-back champions since 2006-07 Florida, perhaps it's time to start considering the possibility of a repeat national championship matchup, which has not happened since Cincinnati defeated Ohio State in back-to-back title games in 1961-62

2 Teams in the Projected Field (by Overall Seed): 4. Arizona, 31. Washington State

Also Considered: Utah, Colorado, Oregon

Biggest Change: Utah's collapse continues

Getting swept at home by the Arizona schools dropped Utah onto the bubble one week ago, and losing at USC on Thursday night was enough to kick the Utes to the curb.

As a standalone data point, conference record doesn't matter. But that loss dropped Utah to 6-8 against a terrible Pac-12, resulting in quite the stockpiles of not-good losses.

The shame of the matter is Utah put together an impressive nonconference slate before losing Rollie Worster to a lower-leg injury and never looking the same since.

The Utes won at Saint Mary's, beat BYU at home and won a neutral-site game against Wake Forest. It's not exactly Kansas beating Connecticut, Tennessee and Kentucky within the first four weeks of the season, but those are all Q1 wins which put the Utes in a really good spot at the start of league play.

As long as they didn't shoot themselves in the foot too much, they would've been fine.

But getting swept by Arizona State and losing at USC, Stanford and Washington has left Utah without a leg to stand on.

At this point, even if the Utes won every game between now and a hypothetical matchup with Arizona in the Pac-12 tournament, it might not be enough. They do have road games against Colorado and Oregon for Q1 opportunities, but it's not like either of those teams is particularly close to the field, either.

9 Teams in the Projected Field (by Overall Seed): 6. Tennessee, 9. Alabama, 14. Auburn, 20. Kentucky, 21. Florida, 23. South Carolina, 40. Texas A&M, 43. Mississippi State, 46. Ole Miss

Also Considered: N/A

Biggest Change: A nightmare week for the Gamecocks, and Kentucky plays defense now?

Let's start first with the scary news for the rest of the country: Kentucky may have finally arrived.

After allowing 84.6 points over their previous 11 games—including the home loss to Gonzaga that had Big Blue Nation's feathers even more ruffled than usual—the Wildcats finally clamped down on defense this week, beating Ole Miss 75-63 in a 72-possession game and beating Auburn 70-59 in a 67-possession game.

In both cases, the opposition shot poorly. But Kentucky also forced a lot of those poor shots with its constant ball pressure. Ugonna Onyenso blocked 10 shots against the Rebels. Reed Sheppard had five steals in each game. Justin Edwards sure seemed to get the memo that he needs to be putting in effort on both ends of the floor.

We'll see if it continues this week for what would be another marquee win Saturday against Alabama, but the big news for bracketology purposes was that convincing road win over Auburn. Kentucky was starting to slip into the vicinity of a No. 8 seed, but that was a serious resume-changer. The 'Cats are now back up to a No. 5 seed, with plenty of opportunity remaining to climb even further.

On the flip side of that "scoring margin against Auburn" coin, South Carolina got absolutely whupped at the Jungle on Wednesday, and then proceeded to suffer a terrible home loss to LSU on Saturday.

There was a strong case for the Gamecocks to be a No. 4 seed in the reveal if they hadn't gotten hopelessly embarrassed in the game against Auburn, but that 40-point shellacking knocked them out of the NET Top 50 and completely off the radar for a spot in the top 16, followed by LSU kicking them while they were down.

South Carolina's road win over Tennessee hasn't gone anywhere. And that 17-point home win over Kentucky looks even better than it did a week ago. But the Gamecocks now have two great wins and two Q3 losses—they previously lost a home game to Georgia—to go along with extremely suspect predictive metrics.

It felt like South Carolina had locked up its bid with the win over Vanderbilt last weekend, but this could still get dicey. They're still hanging onto a No. 6 seed, but the Gamecocks have road games left against Ole Miss, Texas A&M and Mississippi State, as well as home games against Florida and Tennessee. Losing all five is both plausible and highly inadvisable.

27 Teams in the Projected Field (by Overall Seed): 17. Dayton, 26. Saint Mary's, 30. Florida Atlantic, 37. Grand Canyon, 45. Gonzaga, 47. Indiana State, 48. McNeese State, 49. South Florida, 50. Samford, 51. Appalachian State, 52. Yale, 53. Akron, 54. UC Irvine, 55. Vermont, 56. Louisiana Tech, 57. High Point, 58. Charleston, 59. Morehead State, 60. Quinnipiac, 61. Oakland, 62. Eastern Washington, 63. Colgate, 64. Eastern Kentucky, 65. Southern, 66. Merrimack, 67. Norfolk State, 68. North Dakota

Also Considered: Drake, Memphis, James Madison

Biggest Change: Feeling Sick-amores

For the first time since some guy named Larry Bird was there in 1979, Indiana State made its way back in the AP Top 25 last Monday. The Sycamores had also moved somewhat solidly into "at-large bid" territory, landing at No. 35 overall in our previous projection of the field.

But with no regular-season games remaining against Drake or Bradley, everything left prior to Arch Madness was a potential landmine loss. And, unfortunately, they immediately stepped on two of those landmines, losing at home to Illinois State and on the road against Southern Illinois.

The SIU loss wasn't terrible. That's a Q2 result. But that Q4 loss to Illinois State was a brutal one for a team that is merely 1-3 vs. Q1.

There's still a chance at an at-large bid, should the Sycamores win every remaining game before dropping the MVC championship against Drake. They're top 50 in all the metrics, and one bad loss doesn't completely dismantle everything they had built in the 25 games leading up to it. But what should have been a celebratory week sure turned into a trainwreck in a hurry.

Meanwhile, Samford suffered a bad loss at Mercer on Saturday, eliminating what little hope the Bulldogs had for an at-large bid.

At this point, Dayton is the only team from this 25-league tier that is anything close to a lock, and we are down to just nine other teams with even an outside shot (let's call it five percent) at an at-large bid.

If ever there was a year for a perennial one-bid league to put a second team in the field, it was this one with the Pac-12 and ACC looking like they may put just six combined teams in the dance. Sadly, no one outside of maybe Grand Canyon has seized that opportunity.