Bracketology: Post-NBA Draft deadline

Two Bracketology updates within a week. It’s almost like we’re at the end of February. But really, it’s the end of May and the early entrant NBA Draft deadline has come and gone. It was actually a really exciting day. Almost felt like the election or something. I had Jeff Goodman and Jon Rothstein on tweet alerts and watched the updates pile in all day. We had a few guys make decisions before the final day, but the ones that didn’t made this whole thing entertaining.

That of course prompted us to update a Bracketology. We had a few interesting calls and here are the ones that stood out to me:

Oregon lost their two borderline guys. Creighton lost Martin Krampelj. St. John’s lost both of their guys making it easy to pick them last in the Big East. Rayjon Tucker left Memphis, which dropped them out of the top 16. Iowa State lost three players, and UCLA couldn’t get Jaylen Hands or Kris Wilkes back. LSU had six guys test the waters, but only two are leaving. And Houston lost Armoni Brooks which hurt them really really bad.

Louisville lost VJ King, which was bad, but Jordan Nwora made a last-minute call by returning. Seton Hall has Myles Powell predicting a national championship for the Pirates. Xavier has all four guys returning. Indiana is getting three guys back, Oregon State returns both great scorers and Kansas had some up and down news. The Jayhawks were told Quentin Grimes and Devon Dotson were both withdrawing, but only Dotson is returning to Kansas. Last but not least, Maryland is having a party for Anthony Cowan returning for his senior year.

So here’s a MUCH clearer picture on what the college basketball world looks like in our latest Bracketology.

South

  1. Kentucky
  2. Grambling/Howard

  3. Davidson

  4. Marquette

  5. Baylor

  6. South Florida/Illinois

  7. Virginia

  8. UTSA

  9. Saint Mary’s

  10. Colorado

  11. Maryland

  12. Rider

  13. NC State

  14. Georgia

  15. Texas Tech

  16. UCSB

Midwest

  1. Michigan State
  2. Weber State/Sacred Heart

  3. Oklahoma State

  4. Creighton

  5. Xavier

  6. Notre Dame/Oregon State

  7. LSU

  8. Bradley

  9. Cincinnati

  10. Purdue

  11. Arizona

  12. North Dakota State

  13. Alabama

  14. Indiana

  15. Louisville

  16. UT-Arlington

East

  1. Duke
  2. Colgate

  3. Texas A&M

  4. Iowa State

  5. Florida

  6. Liberty

  7. Utah State

  8. New Mexico State

  9. Auburn

  10. Arizona State

  11. Ohio State

  12. Wright State

  13. Florida State

  14. Furman

  15. Villanova

  16. Delaware

West

  1. Kansas
  2. Abilene Christian

  3. Tennessee

  4. Iowa

  5. Memphis

  6. Belmont

  7. Seton Hall

  8. Stony Brook

  9. VCU

  10. Michigan

  11. Gonzaga

  12. Bowling Green

  13. Wisconsin

  14. Harvard

  15. North Carolina

  16. Radford

Last four byes

Colorado
Arizona State
Purdue
Michigan

Last four in

South Florida
Illinois
Notre Dame
Oregon State

First four out

Houston
Ole Miss
Butler
Providence

Next four out

BYU
Dayton
Texas
USC

Photo courtesy of Maryland Athletics