Happy Monday, and welcome to week #2 of WNUR Sports’ Bracketology. 

Thanks to a wild week of women’s basketball, our bracket saw quite a bit of change from week #1. Perhaps most relevant to you as a theoretical fan of the Wildcats is Northwestern’s drop to an eight-seed following an 80-54 loss at Michigan on Wednesday.

Also of note this week, 11 new teams joined the field, including two new at-large teams. 

Before we reveal this week’s brackets, a weekly reminder of six ground rules to keep in mind:

1. Weekly projections are based off of team’s performance and résumé up to that week. Projecting future success is not the goal of this exercise.
2. This week’s brackets reflect games as of Sunday, January 29. 
3. Automatic bid-receiving conference champions (indicated between these guys on the bracket) are the team in first place of the conference at the time of that week’s bracketology update. 
4. Green and red arrows show a team’s week-by-week movement in our projections.
5. Unlike the men’s tournament, the women’s tournament features the opportunity for teams seeded one through four to host first-weekend games. Therefore, the difference between a four and a five-seed in the women’s tournament is a sizable one.
6.  Stanford will not be able to host first and second-round games because the Pac-12 Gymnastics Championship is slated to take over Maples Pavillion on March 18. The Cardinal is currently a two-seed in our projections, so a six, seven, or eight-seed will likely be the beneficiary of the opportunity to host first weekend games in Stanford’s place. As you’ll see below, that could be Northwestern. Something to keep in mind. 

Now, onto this week’s update. We’ll begin with the Bridgeport region:

Heading west, we hit Lexington:

To Oklahoma City we go:

And lastly, Northwestern’s projected region, Stockton:

Bids by conference:

ACC (8)

SEC (8)

Pac-12 (7)

Big 12 (6)

Big Ten (5)

American (3)

Big East (2)

Last Four In:

Indiana

Missouri

Oklahoma State

Virginia Tech

First Four Out: 

Tulane

Creighton

Michigan State

Texas Tech

Longest travel: 

 

1. South Florida to Washington – Tampa, FL to Seattle, WA – 3090 miles
2. Harvard to Washington – Cambridge, MA to Seattle, WA – 3052 miles
3. Kentucky to Oregon State – Lexington, KY to Corvallis, OR – 2392 miles

Upcoming impact games:

Connecticut @ Temple, 6 p.m. Tuesday

Kansas State @ Texas Tech, 6:30 p.m. Wednesday

Mississippi State @ Auburn, 8 p.m. Thursday 

Notre Dame @ Virginia Tech, 6  p.m. Thursday 

Indiana @ Michigan State, 5 p.m. Thursday 

Maryland @ Indiana, 11 a.m. Sunday

 

See you next week!