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 Houston as the overall number one overall seed for the week ending February 5th, 2023.
Another High Major team in Saint Mary’s is also projected as a #3 seed.
A total of 9 High Major and 20 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 12th. 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 32 automatic qualifiers (and the 36 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 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.
All the Mid-Major conferences are projecting just the conference champions as qualifiers and no at-large selections.
The High Major conferences, however, have three leagues with multiple selections in the American Athletic Conference, West Coast Conference and Mountain West Conference. The AAC has two in Houston and Memphis. The WCC has two with Saint Mary’s and Gonzaga. The Mountain West also has two with San Diego State and Boise State.
The first eight out has one High Major teams just out. Cincinnati from the AAC is the lone High Major in this projection.
High Major and Mid-Major schools are as follows as the top 12 seeded schools:
#1 seed -- Houston (High) (1st overall) #3 seed -- Saint Mary's (High) #4 seed -- Gonzaga (High) #9 seed -- San Diego State (High) #10 seed -- Boise State (High) #11 seed -- Memphis (High) #11 seed -- Oral Roberts (Mid) #12 seed -- Florida Atlantic (High) #12 seed -- VCU (High) #12 seed -- Furman (Mid) #12 seed -- Liberty (Mid) #13 seed -- Yale (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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