Women’s Basketball Bracketology: A bubble full of ACC and Big 12

We will start at the top and work through some of the key points that led to the shape of this bracket:

The top of the bracket remains the same, with all four of the No. 1 seeds winning all their games over the last two weeks. Texas continues to be dominant with wins over North Carolina and Baylor during this recent stretch. Not to be outdone, UConn picked up a nice win against USC during that time as well. Those four will continue as the top seeds until someone beats them.

When it came down to the last two No. 4 seeds and the final hosting spots, the margins were razor thin. The thought process involved three ACC teams and Mississippi. Louisville picked up a big win over the weekend against North Carolina in overtime, which pushed the Cardinals into the top 16 and knocked the Tar Heels out. I just had Notre Dame ahead of Mississippi. While Mississippi did beat the Fighting Irish earlier this month, its loss to Kansas State in the following game knocked it down, as that is a Quad 3 loss.

The bubble right now is overrun by Big 12 and ACC teams. It’s no secret the ACC is having a down year, the Big 12 is dominated by two top teams, and everyone is trying to figure out how they slot in. When it came down to it, teams with quality losses won out over teams with losses to Quad 3 or 4 teams. That’s why teams like BYU, Indiana and Miami got in, and Virginia and Florida were sitting on the outside.

The biggest riser of the bracket over the past two weeks was Illinois. I had the Fighting Illini in my first four out a few weeks ago, and now I project them as a No. 8 seed. They picked up nice wins over Indiana and Missouri during this recent stretch, which has them safely in the field.

The biggest faller is Richmond. The Spiders went from a No. 6 seed two weeks ago to a No. 10 seed in this recent bracket. Richmond lost my mid-major game to watch against Fairfield by 20 points on Dec. 7. That hurt the Spiders. I also took a deeper dive into their resume, and they have fewer Quad 1 and 2 wins than other mid-major teams like Fairfield and Princeton.

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Five games that will have the greatest impact on the bracket over the next two weeks

Duke vs. South Dakota State, Dec. 19

Iowa vs. UConn, Dec. 20

Tennessee vs. Louisville, Dec. 20

Stanford vs. Oregon, Dec. 21

USC vs. Nebraska, Dec. 29

Mid-major game that will most impact the bracket over the next two weeks:

Navy vs. South Florida, Dec. 21

Bracketology methodology

Here are some basic bracket rules that help influence my bracket:

• The top four seed lines in each region shall be from different conferences unless a conference has more than four teams in the top 16 (making this rule impossible to follow, as is the case with both the SEC and Big Ten in my bracket).
• Teams from the same conference shall not be projected to meet until the Elite Eight if they met three times during the regular season, or the Sweet 16 if they met twice. Because we don’t know what will happen in conference tournaments, I am assuming every conference team will face each other once more than what is on their schedule. I was able to keep conference teams away from each other until the Elite Eight, with two exceptions, both of which would require an upset win.
• In order to comply with bracket rules, it is acceptable to move a team up or down one seed line. I had to bump Arizona State up one line to a No. 10 seed and Syracuse down one to a No. 11 to follow the rules.

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Bracket breakdown

Multi-bid conferences:

Big Ten: 13

SEC: 11

Big 12: 9

ACC: 7

BIG EAST: 2

Last four in:

Miami

Utah

Indiana

BYU

First four out:

Virginia

Duke

Clemson

Florida

Next four out:

North Dakota State

Georgetown

Davidson

Seton Hall

Next update: Dec. 30