Scott Bell's projected 2025 NCAA tournament bracket
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Happy Selection Sunday, everyone. It’s time for one of my favorite annual posts — my projected NCAA Tournament bracket in advance of this afternoon’s bracket reveal.
Unlike last year, when it was an exercise without much significance to Michigan fans given the Wolverines’ dismal 8-24 (3-17 in B1G play) record, this year’s bracket is very much front of mind for Wolverine faithful. In fact, Michigan is one of just 10 teams in action today.
No. 22 Michigan’s Big Ten Tournament Championship matchup with No. 18 Wisconsin is the final game to tip this afternoon before Selection Sunday. And while there’s a lot to play for in that contest in terms of a banner, I’m fully convinced that result will have no bearing on Michigan (or Wisconsin’s) seed.
More on that a little later. But for now, let’s get to my bracket itself and the thought process behind it.
Past results
For the sake of transparency, here's how all of my NCAA Tournament projections have gone since I started doing it in this space back in 2021:
2021 (full projection here): 67 of 68 (only miss: I had Saint Louis in; Utah St out)
2022 (full projection here): 67 of 68 (only miss: I had Texas A&M in; Notre Dame out)
2023: No Tournament projection (friendly reminder: never plan a Disneyworld trip with the family during Spring Break when Spring Break overlaps w/ March Madness)
2024 (full projection here): 67 of 68 (only miss: I had Oklahoma in; Virginia out)
The teams
Here’s who I think the 68 teams in this year’s field will be (with a few contingencies put in place based on potential bid steals that could happen in the AAC and/or Atlantic 10 Championship Games this afternoon).
Possible bid stealers/contingencies
UAB (a 3.5-point underdog against Memphis in the afternoon's AAC Championship Game) or George Mason (a 7.5-point underdog against VCU in this afternoon's Atlantic-10 Championship Game). If both underdogs win, Indiana will join Xavier on the outside looking in.
Keep in mind that Yale and Cornell are also playing head-to-head today with an autobid on the line. I have Yale penciled in now, but that would be interchangable with Cornell pending the result of that game since the Ivy League is definitely a one-bid league this year.
The bracket
Here’s how all the teams shake out in matchup form:
More on Michigan
To me, Michigan feels locked in to a No. 4 seed. And given the timing of Sunday afternoon’s Big Ten Tournament Championship Game against Wisconsin, it’s hard not to be cynical about how much that games means (or in other words: doesn’t mean) to the committee.
And honestly, that feels like it might work in Michigan’s favor more than it would work against it. I’m not sure a Big Ten Tournament Championship is enough of a resume boost to bump Michigan up to the 3 seed line. The Wolverines feel more on the 4/5 bubble than within sniffing distance of a No. 3 seed. I think Michigan’s resume had the Maize and Blue as a No. 6 seed heading into the Big Ten Tournament. The win over Purdue got them at or near the No. 5 level. And Saturday’s big win over a Maryland team that had won 12 of 14 and was one of the hottest teams in the country feels like it was enough to put Michigan right on the 4/5 bubble — with its closest peer on the seed line being that very Purdue team it just so happened to beat on Friday.
Heading into Sunday morning, it feels likely that Michigan jumped Purdue in terms of some last-minute committee scrubbing (when two teams near each other on the seed list are intensely compared to each other). And it’s justifiable to keep the Wolverines ahead of the Boilermakers even in the case of a loss to Wisconsin today, with the two head-to-head wins for Michigan being a nice tiebreaker.
When you compare the two schools’ resumes, Purdue has the edge in a lot of predictive metrics (19 to 26 on KenPom, 18 to 26 on T-Rank) and Purdue also has an edge in NET (19 to 25). But Michigan has the better resume metrics (an 11-7 Q1 record vs. a 7-10 one from Purdue), a better overall record (24-9 to 22-11) and better finishes than Purdue in Big Ten play in both regular season and conference tournament play. Like I alluded to earlier, the head-to-head edge for the Wolverines, including a very recent result, feels like enough of a tiebreaker to me.
This shouldn’t be a determining factor, but I also think simply from a timing/logistics standpoint that Michigan being on the 4 side of the 4/5 seeding line snake and Purdue being on 5 creates the least amount of resistence and requires the fewest amount of contingencies.
So that’s why I have Michigan as a 4 seed win or lose today.
Coming soon
Just a heads up — I’ll be hosting my fifth annual subscriber NCAA Tournament contest once again this season. Look for details on that to come out either Monday or Tuesday. But once again, I plan on running two different contests: One for premium subscribers only with a $50 cash prize for whoever performs best. And one for premium/free subscribers with a free one-year premium subscription as the prize (if a premium subscriber wins this, they can either get a year tacked on to their existing subscription or a subscription they can gift to a friend).
Both are free to enter.
I’ll also be posting a premium newsletter in the next day or two looking back at Michigan’s surprising resurgance in the Big Ten Tournament, as well as a look ahead to Michigan’s first-round matchup (and ideally beyond). And now that we’re in tournament season, I’ll have takeaways after each game for premium subscribers as well.
Let’s have ourselves a fun March.