South Bend
1. Notre Dame (ACC)
16. Mount St. Mary’s (NEC)
8. Missouri
9. Washington
Milwaukee
5. Iowa
12. Boise State (Mountain West)
4. Marquette
13. New Mexico State (WAC)
It doesn’t take a seasoned bracketologist to figure out where Notre Dame falls on the seed line. The team that’s No. 1 in the RPI has one team ahead of it and that’s the only team it lost to. In this bracket, the Irish’s road to a repeat should take them to the Sweet 16 without much trouble, but a matchup in Chicago against Marquette could be loads of fun. Those two teams face each other on Saturday.
Ames
6. Miami
11. Purdue
3. Iowa State
14. Stephen F. Austin (Southland)
Berkeley
7. South Dakota State
10. Central Michigan (MAC)
2. California
15. Montana State (Big Sky)
Cal is a 2 seed…for now. The Bears play UConn on Saturday and open their Pac-12 schedule against UCLA and USC back-to-back. We’re about to find out if Cal can hold down this spot long-term.
The same could be said for Iowa State, which has one more warmup against Prairie View A&M before five straight games against RPI top 100 teams. The Cyclones have two losses by a combined eight points and are coming off a good win over Drake.