At this point, the teams that'll participate in the NCAA tournament are pretty much decided. There are three things that could upset this balance: an upset in either the CAA or Big East tourney finals, or Yale winning their upcoming game against Penn. The team sweating this out the most is clearly Bucknell. Penn can cement themselves a spot by beating Yale, but Bucknell is sitting on the sidelines rooting for the favorites.
Those favorites would be Penn State and Syracuse, both winners on Thursday. Penn State faces Towson for the CAA championship, and Syracuse faces Villanova in the Big East. The favorites won in the MAAC and NEC, too, but clearly that's not going to have any effect on anything outside of those #15 and #16 spots.
Notre Dame is finally dislodged from the #2 spot. Amazingly, the system spit them out as #1, partly because they have the top RPI in the league. They're finishing the season on a slow note, though. Denver is still the best choice for the #1 seed, and Cornell is the beneficiary of Notre Dame's second loss to the Cuse. Cornell has a solid, well-rounded resume. Cuse can't be below ND at this point, so the Domers drop to fourth.
The other development is that Ohio State, with their win over Loyola, vaults as predicted into hosting duties, and it'll be nigh impossible to bump them from a seed now. The top seven seeds look more or less locked in; the only drama being for #8, and Duke has a pretty decent grasp on it.
I have one more bracketology left in me, which goes up after the games on Friday. We need to see what happens in the Yale-Penn game. I'm going out of town over the weekend and can't get one up on Sunday before the selection show (most likely) so that'll have to do as the final. Based on Friday's games - Yale-Penn most especially - I'll make my final predictions then.
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