2021 CSJ Sagarin NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament Projections-Feb. 7
The CSJ’s NCAA Men’s Basketball tournament using the Sagarin rankings to field of the 68 teams that make-up the tournament are currently projecting Gonzaga as the overall number two seed for the week ending February 7th, 2021.
Another High Major team in Houston is also projected as the top #2 seed.
A total of nine High Major and 19 Mid-Major teams are projected to make the Field of 68 teams in this projection.
We use the Sagarin rankings to select our Top 25 teams currently for our Mid-Major poll and High Major poll.
We will be giving a projection for the Field of 68 schools each week following the release of each Top 25 polls until the actual selection of field on March 14th. As actual tournament champions are crowned, these will also be placed into the projections.
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.
Click on the graphic for a larger view.
Field of 68
The following are the 68 teams based on the Sagarin rankings and using the 31 automatic qualifiers (one less without the Ivy League participating this year) and the 37 at-large qualifiers. 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.
Click on the graphic for a larger view.
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.
NOTE: Arizona has placed a self-imposed ban on its postseason opportunity this year and would have been an 11th seed in the projections and opened the spot for Utah State to take its place in this week’s rankings.
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 leagues with two selections in the Mountain West and the West Coast Conference. The MWC has San Diego State and Boise State, while the WCC also has two selections in Gonzaga and BYU.
The first eight out has three High Major teams just out. One team just out in the Atlantic 10 is Saint Louis as Richmond currently is the only team from that league in the field. The AAC has two teams just out in Memphis and SMU with Houston right now being the lone team from that league.
The top ten seeded High Major and Mid-Major schools are as follows:
#1 seed -- Gonzaga (High) (2nd overall) #2 seed -- Houston (High) #4 seed -- San Diego State (High) #6 seed -- BYU (High) #11 seed -- Boise State (High) #12 seed -- Loyola-Chicago (High) #12 seed -- Utah State (High) #12 seed -- Richmond (High) #12 seed -- Toledo (Mid) #13 seed -- Wright State (Mid)
Originally from LaMoure, North Dakota, Kent is a 1996 graduate of North Dakota State University. His prior writing experience is over 15 years having previously worked with D2football.com, I-AA.org, and College Sporting News before coming to College Sports Journal in 2016. His main focus is college football is the Missouri Valley Football Conference within the Division I FCS. And in 2017, he began also to look at the FBS Group of Five conferences of the American Athletic, Conference USA, Mid-American, Mountain West, and Sun Belt.
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