The latest bracket projection is available, and, thanks to all the jockeying for position in tournaments conducted by conferences you’ve never heard of among teams you couldn’t locate on a map, the Georgia Bulldogs have slipped to the eleven line on the S-curve, and I have been left longing for the sanity of an SEC-specific bowl pecking order (in which the greatest uncertainty is over whether the Outback Bowl will do something weird again) or, in the alternative, the expansion of the field to 4,096 teams.
The Fox Hounds now find themselves among the last four teams into the field who will not have to participate in a play-in game. Chris Dobbertean foresees a first round showdown with the sixth-seeded Cincinnati Bearcats in the Tulsa Pod of the West Region, with the winner to face the team that emerges from the third-seeded Texas Longhorns’ opening matchup.
Aside from wins over the Auburn Tigers on Thursday and the Alabama Crimson Tide on Friday, what would help the Red and Black the most would be a Big East Tournament loss by the Marquette Golden Eagles to the West Virginia Mountaineers at 9:00 tonight on ESPN, an ACC Tournament that plays out according to plan, and Big Ten Tournament losses by the Michigan St. Spartans to the Iowa Hawkeyes at 5:00 tomorrow afternoon, by the Michigan Wolverines to the Illinois Fighting Illini at 2:30 Friday afternoon on ESPN, and by the Illini to the Ohio St. Buckeyes at 1:40 Saturday afternoon on CBS.
Go ‘Dawgs!