Selection Sunday is less than four weeks away and football season is over. If you're just beginning to tune in to college basketball this season, welcome.
In many years at this point in the calendar, I'd have already been looking at a compendium of prospective NCAA seedings several times a week, if not daily. Recently, I haven't cared as much. I just want to watch a good on-court product and my favorite teams in the lead up to one of the great events on the sports calendar.
But in those same recent years, I've also become actively annoyed at the increasing creep of bracketology in game broadcasts. If I'm watching Duke put on a team defense masterclass against Clemson or seeing Texas Tech topple Arizona on the road in mid-February, I don't need to know the machinations of how these results affect the NCAA tournament bracket on ESPN — especially when said consequences are educated guesswork of one man.
Speaking of Joe Lunardi, I couldn't believe something I was seeing a few weeks ago. TV's resident bracketologist, who isn't even in the top half of his "field," said that the new Pac-12 could rival the Big East for number of bids and percentage of the field in 2027 and going forward.
On its face, sure. Gonzaga, San Diego State, Colorado State, and Utah State have been regular players in the field this decade, or much better in the case of the 'Zags and Aztecs. And the Big East is having a down year, with only UConn and St. John's looking like potential Sweet 16 teams.
But without full-season context, this kind of statement is nonsense. This isn't the Champions League in soccer where leagues are allotted spots based on past performance.
Last year, when the ACC only had four NCAA bids and the Big East five, you could have said that the Big East would surpass the ACC and sounded reasonable. This year, you'd look dumb, because the ACC got the non-conference wins and strong rosters it needed to get more bids.
Let's put that quibbling aside, though. More importantly, I don't think mock brackets before conference tournaments begin are very useful anymore.
If you've been following college basketball somewhat closely the past couple seasons, you might understand how top-heavy the sport has become. Both raw records and season-long metrics show this trend.
Ten years ago, every single team in the country had at least five losses, including national champion Villanova. In 2026, as of February 15, nine power-conference teams had four or fewer losses and three more from non-power conferences had two or fewer.
In 2006, on KenPom, the Villanova team led by Kyle Lowry, Randy Foye, and Allan Ray was fifth in that national efficiency ranking at +24.59. In 2026, a +24.59 efficiency margin compared to the national average would only rank 22nd.
In other words, there are more teams that look and perform great on a game-to-game basis at the top of the sport in 2026. We don't have to wonder if they're getting in or will be favored in Round 1. Even if there's a gap between on-court performance and results against top competition, like Gonzaga in 2025, the team will have the chance to prove it on the court in March.
What about the other end of the bracket? As I mentioned last month, about three-quarters of Division I conferences are now consistent one-bid leagues.
To me, the insistence of these leagues to hold conference tournaments with most or all of their teams makes projecting an NCAA tournament representative close to a lost cause. Every year in the first or second week of March, there are examples of mid-major teams who won their leagues by multiple games but have to settle for watered-down consolations that mean less than they ever have before.
One reason I used to love the bracket projections was to see what teams might be on track for pulling major upsets should they catch an overrated big-time program or a national power on an off day. But those teams that occupy the last few seed lines in mock brackets from now until about March 7 can't be counted on to represent their conferences in March Madness.
But for argument's sake, let's say that every team currently leading a one-bid league by two games or more as of February 15 wins their conference tournament. That would include:
Belmont (Missouri Valley)
Liberty (Conference USA)
UNC Wilmington (CAA)
Portland St (Big Sky)
Stephen F. Austin (Southland)
East Tennessee St. (Southern)
Navy (Patriot)
Bethune Cookman (SWAC)
Long Island (NEC)
Each one of these teams would be a prohibitive underdog against a top-five seed in the round of 64, and perhaps to a historic degree. Even last year, when one seeds filled the Final Four, no team lower than a three-seed made the Elite Eight, and the Sweet 16 were all from Power Four conferences, the top 20 teams in America didn't have this kind of gap on their prospective mid-major opponents.
Last season, 12 teams won single-bid leagues by two or more games in the regular season, with seven making the NCAA tournament. Those seven went a combined 2-7 in the dance with an average margin of -11.2 points per game. The average spread set in those nine games was 7.4 points. They underperformed expectations by about four points a contest — and those were the most consistent teams from non-power leagues.
Last year, all 16 protected seeds on the first four lines won their first round games. That's happened six times in the 64-team-plus era. But it's never happened in back-to-back years. If Nos. 1-16 on the Selection Committee's S-curve all make it to the Round of 32 in March, it will serve as the clearest sign yet that the transfer portal and NIL era in hoops is synonymous with a lack of big upsets.
Incredibly, the aforementioned list of mid-majors this season doesn't include Miami University, the nation's only undefeated team who is just a game up in the MAC standings. If the Redhawks get to 31-0, sweep the regular season, and lose in the MAC conference tournament, I feel like they couldn't be left out of a First Four spot in Dayton, even with middling per-possession team metrics.
But the fact of the matter is that no bracketologist knows for sure. The guesswork, along with the possibility that the first round matchups between loaded power conference teams and mid-major teams could be less competitive than ever, makes the bracket "science" one class I'll be skipping for the next few weeks.
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