Bracket Projection: 2/27

We're getting down to it! We've entered conference tournament season, where I chain myself to my spreadsheets and furiously create new brackets as different teams punch their tickets and seeding makes its final few shuffles. Here's the bracket as it currently stands:

	ATLANTA	BOSTON	OMAHA	LOS ANGELES
1	Virginia	Villanova	Xavier	Kansas
2	Michigan State	Purdue	North Carolina	Duke
3	Auburn	Cincinnati	Tennessee	Wichita St.
4	Arizona	Clemson	Texas Tech	Ohio St.
5	West Virginia	Rhode Island	Kentucky	Gonzaga
6	Houston	Michigan	Nevada	TCU
7	Seton Hall	Texas A&M	Creighton	Arkansas
8	Florida	Florida St.	Oklahoma	Butler
9	Arizona St.	Saint Mary's	Miami FL	USC
10	Missouri	Virginia Tech	Alabama	Louisville
11	North Carolina St.	Kansas St.	Texas	Middle Tennessee
11			Providence	St. Bonaventure
12	Buffalo	Baylor	Louisiana Lafayette	Loyola Chicago
13	New Mexico St.	Vermont	Murray St.	South Dakota
14	Bucknell	Montana	UNC Greensboro	Northeastern
15	Canisius	Northern Kentucky	UC Santa Barbara	Wagner
16	UNC Asheville	Penn	Florida Gulf Coast	Nicholls St.
16	Hampton			Grambling St.

Kansas has been lurking on the 2 line just about all season, but finally claims their place with the top seeds as they appear to be closing out the regular season in strong fashion. What's interesting this year is that it looks like each of the top 8 has a decent shot at landing a 1 seed. The only one that looks set in stone is Virginia. The Big East powerhouses are on a collision course, as are the two Big Ten teams just behind them. And the ACC Tournament will be ripe with opportunities for teams to rack up resume-boosting wins, something Duke is actually lacking right now despite their shiny advanced stats. 

As for games I missed yesterday that aren't affecting this bracket: Virginia Tech beat Duke (speaking of lacking big wins) and that's about it. This year I'm trying to front load some of the work it takes to have the bracket up to date throughout the coming chaos so that I don't end up missing the final deadline for Bracket Matrix scoring like I did last year. So get ready for these posts to become a bit more frequent, and get ready for the Madness!