2020 CSJ Sagarin NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Projections-Mar. 8

On By Kent Schmidt




Here are this week’s CSJ’s NCAA Men’s Basketball tournament projections using these same Sagarin rankings for the field of 68 teams. We are just one week away from Selection Sunday. This week, I will put together another projection after Wednesday’s results and another one after Saturday’s action.

We use the Sagarin rankings to select our Top 25 teams currently for our Mid-Major poll and High Major poll.

The following are the automatic qualifiers thus far from the 32 Division I conferences through Sunday, March 8:

  • Atlantic Sun | Champion: Liberty
  • Big South | Champion: Winthrop
  • Missouri Valley | Champion: Bradley
  • Mountain West | Champion: Utah State
  • Ohio Valley | Champion: Belmont

Automatic Qualifiers

The following are the 32 projected Division I conference champions. The ones highlighted in YELLOW are what we categorize as Mid-Major conferences. The ones highlighted in GREEN are ones we categorize as High-Major conferences. And the ones highlighted in BLUE are ones we categorize as Major conferences. The teams in BOLD are ones that have earned their conference’s automatic bid through their conference tournament. The teams not in BOLD are ones that are the highest projected team in their conference by these rankings.

Field of 68

The following are the 68 teams based on the Sagarin rankings and using the 32 automatic qualifiers and the 36 at-large qualifers.  Note just as above, the teams highlighted in YELLOW are ones from Mid-Major conferences, in GREEN are High Major conferences, and in BLUE are from Major conferences.

Each of the seeds are highlighted for the four regions with the exception of the #11, #12 and #16 seeds, which have more teams as those are the seeds in these projections that would play in the First Four games.  The eight First Four teams are highlighted on the left in ORANGE and in italics.  These teams are the last four at-large teams and the last four automatic qualifying teams.

Click on the link to see a larger view

All the Mid-Major conferences are projecting just the conference champions as qualifiers and no at-large selections.

The High Major conferences, however, have two additional team from the American Athletic Conference (Cincinnati and Wichita State) to join champion Houston.  And the West Coast Conference also added two additional teams (St. Mary’s & BYU) to join champion Gonzaga.  The Mountain West also has one to join San Diego State in Utah State.

The top ten seeded High Major and Mid-Major schools are as follows:Preformatted

#1 seed -- Gonzaga (High)
#2 seed -- Dayton (High)
#3 seed -- San Diego State (High)
#4 seed -- BYU (High)
#5 seed -- Houston (High)  
#8 seed -- Wichita State (High)
#9 seed -- Utah State (High) 
#9 seed -- Cincinnati (High)
#10 seed -- St. Mary's (High)
#12 seed -- East Tennessee State (Mid)



Post Views: 2,034