Men’s Bracketology 1/26/26

The wheat separated from the chaff this weekend. Several teams who were pretty likely to make the tournament took big steps towards firming up their bid. Auburn, UCF, UCLA and USC are some examples- all played games that we’re lose-able, but all won easily. That’s bad news for the few bubble teams who lost, like Seton Hall who fell to DePaul.

At the top of the bracket, my 2 line is entirely composed of Big Ten teams after Illinois’ road win over Purdue. I also have Michigan on the 1 line. The Big Ten is not going to be able to maintain 5 teams on the top 2 seed lines- there’s just not enough wins in the league to go around. The winner of Tuesday’s Nebraska/Michigan game will be solidly on my 1 line on Wednesday’s update.

I’m sure I’m one of the very few bracketologists who have Indiana in. This is mostly a philosophy difference- they’d be out if the field was seeded right now. However, their predictive average is 29.3- indicating they will probably do enough down the stretch to earn a bid. I think 19-12 should get them there.

I’d also like to shout out Santa Clara, who I moved into my bracket today, I believe for the first time in my 16 year history of bracketology. The Broncos are in very few projected brackets right now, but I’m not sure why- their resume average is 50.3 and their predictive average is 47.

Moving In: Indiana, Santa Clara

Moving Out: Seton Hall, Virginia Tech

Bids by Conference:

Big 10: 11

SEC: 9

ACC: 8

Big 12: 7

Big East: 3

Mountain West: 3

West Coast: 3