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Sometime shortly after noon next Thursday, the greatest sporting weekend of the year will begin. There is almost no doubt that Xavier will be involved at some level, but exactly where they’ll be slotted won’t be clear until later on today. In the meantime, here’s what the available evidence shows us right now.
First of all, if you’re not familiar with the Bracket Matrix, now’s the time to get to know it. It takes the information from every bracket projection that means anything, compiles it, and spits out some averages to give fans a kind of crowd sourced bracketology.
The Bracket Matrix has Xavier as a 10 seed right now, solidly in the field but not exactly sitting pretty. That would (obviously) give Xavier a matchup with a 7 seed in the first round. Projected 7 seeds are St. Mary’s (13th in the KenPom), Michigan (24th), Miami (FL) (32nd), and Maryland (45th). It’s a mixed bag, to say the least, but there are some good potential matchups for Xavier in there.
What could change today? Not much, to be honest. There are six championship games on the schedule today, and three of them (SEC, Big Ten, AAC) are between two teams who are no matter what happens. Two others (Ivy, Sun Belt) will put the winner into the NCAA tournament and the loser on summer break.
The lone curve ball here is the A-10 championship between VCU and URI. VCU is probably in even if they lose. URI is currently clinging to the bottom of the bubble, and one loss would put them in a really gut-churning position. Depending on what bracket you prefer, they could read as a potential bid thief.
The bracket will be revealed on CBS tonight beginning at 5:30pm. From what we can see right now, expect to hear Xavier’s name called.