Predicting the 2009 NCAA Tournament Bracket

It's that time of the year—Selection Sunday. The madness will be outlined before our very eyes.

While everyone will be picking their brackets over the next few days, I decided to take an extra step, and guess what the bracket will look like before it is actually released.

I predicted the bracket last year under the headline "the quest to beat Joe Lunardi" and lost to Joe picking teams (he got 65 of 65, I got 64) but did a little better job picking seeds.

You can review my last year's picks and recap here.

I will not simply try and outpick a fellow (and highly more successful) bracketologist this year, but simply try to see how close I can get to being right this year.

This first version will run for a couple hours then I will update it after the 1 EST games end, especially since both the ACC and SEC finals can impact the entire grid.

From what I've learned over doing this before is that the 3 EST and later games today (this year it's only the Big Ten final) is finished too late to change the bracket, and both teams in the final are in, so it's specific outcome will have no bearing on the seeding.

Updated through all games except the Big Ten final which won't effect the seeding (auto bids in bold, predicted auto bids italicized, RPI numbers thanks to InsideRPI from ESPN):

East

1 Pittsburgh (Big East)

No. 1 overall seed, 7 top 25 wins, tied for most in the nation.

16a Morehead State (OVC) (Play-in game)

Winner of the OVC tournament, tough OT win over Austin Peay to get here.

16b Chattanooga (Southern) (Play-in game)

Winner of the Southern conference tourney, much less thrilling to the public than Davidson.

8 Cal (Pac-10) 22-10

9 Dayton (A-10) 26-7

Cal very inconsistent, but with a lot of big wins. After reviewing Cal and Tennessee's profile, I switched the two seeds. Dayton's 26 wins help them get in as the second best A-10 team.

5 Florida State (ACC) 25-9

12 San Diego State (MWC) 23-9

San Diego State is in my last three in—beating UNLV three times and BYU in the semifinals of the MWC tourney gets 'em in, but just barely. Florida State finished real strong, and might be good enough to be a four-seed if they can beat Duke.

4 Purdue (Big Ten) (predicted winner over Ohio St)  24-9

13 Cleveland State (Horizon) 25-10

Great finish for Purdue—blowing away Penn State and solidly beating Illinois. Great shooters. Cleveland State is capable of an upset. Purdue knows upsets too well.

6 Gonzaga (WCC) 26-5

11 Temple (A-10)  22-11

Temple moves up to an 11 with the Mississippi State win. Gonzaga is a real hot team right now, but a lower seed than their top 25 ranking would suggest.

3 Wake Forest (ACC) 24-6

14 North Dakota State (Summit) 26-6

Wake Forest is very up-and-down, but finished second in the ACC. North Dakota State is now officially the most consistent tournament team in Division I (one appearance in one year of eligibility).

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