bracket's out

Only 13 national bracket projections even had Florida in the field. And so naturally they get a 10 seed. The best bubble team that wasn't included was apparently Virginia Tech, which had 28 projections out of 56. Both Illinois and Mississippi State were also ahead of Florida on this list. Leaving any of these 4 teams out is certainly acceptable, none were obvious glaring needs for inclusion (unlike Utah State which rated as a 5 seed on my list...and they're playing one as a 12). But picking Florida out of these 4 teams strikes me as very odd. They're clearly the worst of the 4.

Every year there are people calling for an expanded bracket. I don't think this is necessary. Largely because the teams that get left out don't really have a strong case for inclusion in most years. The committee generally does a fair job of selecting the at-large teams most worthy of bids. It's the seeding that ends up sort of strange more routinely. You can make a case that Florida wasn't one of the best 34 teams at large (pretty easily since they lost to South Alabama), but it's hard to make a case positively for any of the teams left out instead of them. If however it came down to Utah State (or UTEP, both got 12 seeds as at large bids in weak conferences) rather than Florida as the worst team I am concerned.

Actual bracket thoughts.
Pittsburgh getting a 3. I think the 9 seed range that they score at for my purposes is certainly well low, but a 3 seed is also pushing sanity. I'm not convinced they could beat either Minnesota or Xavier. The field had them average a 4 seed. In general the Big East got higher seeds than would be considered likely. Notre Dame for example I have as in a 6-11 game, but as the 11, not the 6. The field has them around an 8. Villanova is a bit high for a 2 seed, I had them as a low 3 or high 4, and this is mostly because they ended the season playing poorly.

I was pleased that Tennessee fell to a 6 from the field's average of a 4 seed, but I had them even lower still. Vanderbilt consistently gets overseeded every year it seems like by the same 4 or 5 seed lines (though the field had them as a 5 anyway). They also consistently become one of my easier upset picks as a result. I'm guessing the impressed feeling of indulging the SEC as somehow a more powerful conference than it has actually been this year led to Florida getting in at all. If Tennessee was not playing San Diego in Providence, I'd probably have picked both to lose in the first round. Texas is not a friendly matchup for Kentucky either (in New Orleans?), neither is Wisconsin or West Virginia. Temple and New Mexico are.

Duke has some unfriendly territory early on and a pretty compressed region generally. They have no true 2 seed at all, but they have #11 Baylor, #13 Purdue, #15 California, #16 Villanova, #20 Utah State, #22 Texas AM all in there. Texas Am and Utah St however play each other in the first round and Baylor and Villanova would play each other in the sweet 16. All Duke really has to do is get past California (who will quite probably lose to Louisville since they're playing Jacksonville) and a banged up Purdue team, though if they play Baylor it would be in Houston. Which might be interesting.

BYU got far more shafted than I expected. They didn't play very many meaningful games, but I expect they could be an odd look. If they weren't playing Kansas State, that'd be my elite 8 sleeper posing another odd home court edge by playing in Salt Lake City against Syracuse. The West was by far the screwiest seed wise. Both Pitt and Vandy were out here and Minnesota of course drew a much lower seed than their play would indicate, same with UTEP. Plus this is where Florida is playing (BYU in the first round). That said, other than the BYU-K.St matchup in the second round, there aren't a whole lot of tough calls.

Final Four generally looks like this Kansas plays Syracuse, West Virginia plays Duke. Best guess is that the toughest games for Kansas would be the Ohio State/Georgetown winner and Syracuse and not whoever comes out of the other side of the bracket for the title game.