2020 CSJ Sagarin NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Projections-March 13th

The CSJ’s NCAA Men’s Basketball tournament using the Sagarin rankings to field of the 68 teams that make-up the tournament for games through the week of March 13th. This will be the final projections before the actual tournament bracket will be announced later today, Sunday March 14th with this year’s tournament being fully located in the state of Indiana for its duration.

These projections are currently showing Gonzaga as the overall number one seed as the Bulldogs are currently the only undefeated Division I men’s basketball school.

Another High Major team in Houston is also projected as the second #2 seed, while San Diego State is projected to be a #6 seed.

A total of eight High Major and 19 Mid-Major teams are projected to make the Field of 68 teams in this projection.

The only two High Major conferences to get multiple bids are the American Athletic Conference (AAC) with Houston getting the automatic bid and Memphis getting a second bid, while the West Coast Conference (WCC) has Gonzaga with that automatic bid and joined by BYU.

There are, however, five High Major teams in the First Eight Out in the Mountain West’s Utah State, Saint Louis and VCU from the Atlantic 10, and SMU from the AAC.

There are five conference championship games yet to play so based on these projections, Cincinnati and VCU could play their ways as automatic qualifiers from the AAC and Atlantic 10 respectively. Either Colgate or Loyola Maryland will be the Patriot League champion and would be the only team from that conference to get a bid. Both the Power Conferences of the Big 10 and the SEC will send their title game participants based on these projections.

Automatic Qualifiers

The following are the 26 of the 31 Division I conference tournament champions champions and receive their conference’s automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. Note that the 32nd conference in the Ivy League decided to not play this season due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Five conference title games will be played yet today with those automatic bids going out.

  • America East
    • Hartford
  • American Athletic
    • Houston vs. Cincinnati (in today’s title game)
  • Atlantic 10
    • VCU vs. St. Bonaventure (in today’s title game)
  • ACC
    • Georgia Tech
  • Atlantic Sun
    • Liberty
  • Big 12
    • Texas
  • Big East
    • Georgetown
  • Big Sky
    • Eastern Washington
  • Big South
    • Winthrop
  • Big Ten
    • Ohio State vs. Illinois (in today’s title game)
  • Big West
    • UC Santa Barbara
  • Colonial
    • Drexel
  • Conference USA
    • North Texas
  • Horizon League
    • Cleveland State
  • Ivy League
    • None
  • Metro Atlantic Athletic (MAAC)
    • Iona
  • Mid-American (MAC)
    • Ohio
  • Mid-Eastern Athletic (MEAC)
    • Norfolk State
  • Missouri Valley
    • Loyola Chicago
  • Mountain West
    • San Diego State
  • Northeast
    • Mount St. Mary’s
  • Ohio Valley
    • Morehead State
  • Pac-12
    • Oregon State
  • Patriot League
    • Colgate vs. Loyola Maryland (in today’s title game)
  • SEC
    • Alabama vs. LSU (in today’s title game)
  • Southern
    • UNC Greensboro
  • Southland
    • Abilene Christian
  • Southwestern Athletic (SWAC)
    • Texas Southern
  • Summit League
    • Oral Roberts
  • Sun Belt
    • Appalachian State
  • West Coast
    • Gonzaga
  • Western Athletic (WAC)
    • Grand Canyon

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, the teams highlighted in YELLOW are ones from Mid-Major conferences, in GREEN are High Major conferences, and in BLUE are from Major conferences. All teams in bold are either the champions of their respective conferences or the projected champion based on the higher Sagarin ranking.

Each of the seeds are highlighted for the four regions with the exception of the #11, #12, and #16 seeds, which have six teams for the #11 and six for the #16 seeds. These seeds are 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.

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

#1 seed -- Gonzaga (High) (2nd overall)
#2 seed -- Houston (High)
#6 seed -- San Diego State (High)
#7 seed -- BYU (High)
#10 seed -- Loyola-Chicago (High)
#11 seed -- St. Bonaventure (High)
#11 seed -- Memphis (High)
#12 seed -- Colgate (Mid)
#12 seed -- North Texas (High) 
#13 seed -- UNC Greensboro (Mid)