For the first time since the beginning of January, there has been a change at the top of the 2025 NCAA Tournament bracket projection. Florida's humiliation of Tennessee on Tuesday has dropped the Volunteers from the top line of the bracket. Tennessee is now a No. 2 seed, as are the Gators.
Not to fear SEC fans – Alabama has jumped up to the top line to keep two SEC teams as No. 1 seeds.
In fact, there are seven SEC teams in the top 16 of the bracket and 11 teams in the field of 68. The Big Ten also has 11 teams in the field, but only three in the top quadrant.
Bracketology top seeds
Check out Palm's bracket and full field of 68 at the Bracketology hub.
Big 12 has big discrepancies
The Big 12 has had a rough start to the season in terms of getting the kinds of wins it needs for higher tournament seeds. Iowa State has been great and is a projected No. 1 seed, but the only other team in Friday's bracket seeded higher than No. 6 is Kansas. The Jayhawks are a No. 4 seed, which has to be disappointing for a team that was widely expected to win this season's NCAA Tournament. That could still happen, of course, but they do not look quite like the team they were expected to be yet.
There are a couple of teams in the Big 12 with gaudy NET rankings and little to show for it. Houston sits fourth in Friday's NET, but is a No. 6 seed in the bracket. The reason for that is because the Cougars' best win so far has come against BYU. That is the only team among the 11 that Houston has defeated that was on my board when I put this bracket together, but I never got to them or even close.
The Cougars' metrics that are not based on margin of victory (KPI, SOR) are a better reflection of what their resume says about them. No bad losses, no noteworthy wins. Being inoffensive can get you a decent seed in a January bracket.
Texas Tech is 17th in the NET rankings and out of the bracket entirely. The Red Raiders also count a win over BYU as its best of the season, but they also have two Quad 3 losses and a strength of schedule ranking in the 180s thanks to a wretched nonconference schedule.
The league as a whole is below .500 against Quad 2 opposition. The ACC is the only other major conference that has that distinction, although that conference has not had the quality depth of teams that it had in its heyday. In the Big 12's defense, it is the only conference without a Quad 4 loss.
It would be remarkable if teams with NET rankings that high were left out of the NCAA Tournament in March, but this is not even mid-January. The relative lack of games played creates some idiosyncrasies in the computer rankings. UCF is 77th in the NET in large part because of a 51-point home loss to Kansas. The Knights dropped 21 places in the rankings overnight to 87th. Kansas moved up from 21st to tenth. A similar result in March would have a less dramatic impact because it would be one of 30+ games instead of one of 13.
