Bracketology: Reigning NCAA Tournament champion Virginia jumps into the field in latest bracket projection

Last Friday, the NCAA announced that it would do away with the geographic priority normally given to bracketing the tournament. With the entire tournament being played in the Indianapolis area, there is no point in considering geography this season. Therefore, they will stick more strictly to the S-Curve ranking of the teams Nos. 1-68. That means you would see the overall No. 1 seed in the same region as the overall No. 8 seed, which would be a No. 2 seed. The No. 2 overall seed would be paired with the No. 7 and so on. This is often called snaking the bracket.

However, the NCAA is still keeping all of the conference separation rules in place, meaning there will be some deviation from the snake, possibly even among the top two seeds in the regions.

I have already been applying these principles in my brackets since the initial announcement that the tournament would be in one city. It seemed obvious that the NCAA was going to come to this decision eventually.