College Basketball Bracketology January 19, 2026 According to glassjawed

EvilBoilerUp89 intro: Okay, full disclosure the title is misleading. This isn't bracketology. There's no bracket. But's it's as close as we are going to get to it around these parts as we've quite frankly struggled to do much more than the daily threads (I have however started my research for the countdown - I have at least thru next weekend before I need to be too concerned).

This is a seed list put together by community commentator and second time contributor glassjawed. I could have tried to make this into a functional bracket. Once you order all the teams from 1 thru 68, you just follow the bracketing rules. However, there was no attempt to make a working bracket from this list. A few reasons exist for that: 1) EvilBoilerUp89 is lazy. This is the most important reason. 2) glassjawed determined seeds but didn't order teams within the seeds. 3) It's way, way too early to put together a functional bracket. We don't need to know that Wisconsin would play North Carolina in a 7/10 game in Houston if the season ended today. The seed list is what's important.

Anyway, rather than have me continue to ramble on... let's have glassjawed speak for themselves:

It is both a snapshot of what I think the field should look like if the season ended today and heavily skewed towards teams that actually win basketball games. As I have repeatedly yelled into the void over the last 15 years, the biggest drawback of the NCAA tournament as it currently exists is how often 14 or 15 loss P4 schools make the field over 25 or 26 win mid majors. Win games damnit.

My methodology is eye wateringly simple.

Q1 wins are worth the most. Q4 losses hurt you the most. You are rewarded for wins. Losses actually hurt your profile.

Each has a (secret and sacred) numerical value attached to it, which I turned into a formula and plugged and chugged.

Hope you hate the results.

The 1 Seeds

UCONN+ (Big East), Duke+ (ACC), Michigan+ (B1G), Arizona+ (Big 12)

The 2 Seeds

Purdue (B1G), Nebraska (B1G), Houston (Big 12), Iowa State (Big 12)

The 3 Seeds

Vanderbilt+ (SEC), Gonzaga+ (WCC), Michigan State (B1G), BYU (Big 12)

The 4 Seeds

Virginia (ACC), Illinois (B1G), Clemson (ACC), Alabama (SEC)

The 5 Seeds

Texas Tech (Big 12), UCF (Big 12), Florida (SEC), Kansas (Big 12)

The 6 Seeds

Utah State+ (MWC), Miami University+ (MAC), St. Mary's (WCC), Villanova (Big East)

The 7 Seeds

USC (B1G), UNC (ACC), George Mason+ (A10), St. John's (Big East)

The 8 Seeds

University of Miami (ACC), SMU (ACC), Georgia (SEC), St. Louis (A10)

The 9 Seeds

Louisville (ACC), Seton Hall (Big East), Arkansas (SEC), Texas A&M (SEC)

The 10 Seeds

Virginia Tech (ACC), New Mexico (MWC), Wisconsin (B1G), San Diego State (MWC)

The 11 Seeds

Tennessee (SEC), Santa Clara (WCC), Murray State^^ (MVC), Iowa^^ (B1G), Kentucky^^ (SEC), Ohio State^^ (B1G)

The 12 Seeds

Belmont+ (MVC), McNeese+ (Southland), Tulsa+ (American), Liberty+ (CUSA)

The 13 Seeds

UNC Wilmington+ (CAA), Yale+ (Ivy), Utah Valley+ (WAC), High Point+ (Big South)

The 14 Seeds

Troy+ (Sun Belt), Hawaii+ (Big West), UT Martin+ (OVC), St. Thomas+ (Summit)

The 15 Seeds

Portland State+ (Big Sky), Oakland+ (Horizon), Marist+ (MAAC), Lipscomb+ (ASUN)

The 16 Seeds

Mercer+ (SoCon), LIU+ (NEC), Navy+^^ (Patriot), Vermont+^^ (AEC), Bethune Cookman+^^ (MEAC), Howard+^^ (SWAC)

First Eight Out

North Carolina State, Missouri, Baylor, Cal, VCU, UCLA, Butler, Indiana

By Conference
B1G - 9
ACC - 8
SEC - 8
Big 12 - 7
Big East - 4
WCC - 3
MWC - 3
A10 - 2
MVC - 2

Legend
+ Auto
^^ Dayton

Reactions

Some of these may need to wait until the article posts as EvilBoilerUp89 formatted it late.

EvilBoilerUp89: The 1 seeds make sense and honestly I think there's an 80% chance that's the 1 seeds come Selection Sunday. If anyone is going to break into the group, watch out for Houston.

Illinois feels low, but since this is results based I get it. They would be a nightmare 4 seed for a waiting 1 though. UCF feels very high but I also wouldn't move up any of the 6 or 7 seeds above them.

We need to have a conversation about Miami University and George Mason's scheduling practices. I tend to split the difference between Kindof... and glassjawed. Good Mid majors get the shaft. However, neither Miami nor George Mason were expected to be good. They deliberately set out to schedule easily. While I tend to give mid majors the benefit of the doubt, I can't for either of these teams yet. Games still remain for them to convince me but I'm very much taking a wait and see approach for the time being.

Not too many questions about the auto bids, but would like to know why Oakland over Wright State and why St. Thomas over North Dakota State.

As a snapshot in time, I think it's fairly accurate to how things should be but there are teams I fully expect to move up (Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Louisville) and teams I fully expect to move down (Villanova, Texas A&M, USC, Seton Hall). I also expect the smaller schools to get screwed at the first opportunity and will note that several of these teams made things easy for the committee if they do get left out.

Kind of...: As a pure snapshot, I don't have a ton of issues. But we all know that conference season is when the great divergence opens up with the power conferences. Whatever your assessment of the fairness of all this, it's going to happen.

If you put a gun to my head and said I had to consent to a bracket built around one measure, I'd be boring and say "fine, just go with bracketmatrix composite." If you said, "No, you need to pick one metric to rule them all," I'd go with Wins above Bubble. Right now, Miami (OH) is a 7-seed three and George Mason is an 8. So, again, as a snapshot, no problems.

EBU89: WaB is the superior metric.