Bracketology: Tennessee takes fourth No. 1 seed spot away from North Carolina; Kansas slips to a No. 3

Bracketology: Tennessee takes fourth No. 1 seed spot away from North Carolina; Kansas slips to a No. 3

Tennessee has jumped up to claim the fourth No. 1 seed in Sunday’s updated Bracketology after winning at Alabama. The Vols have a comparable set of wins to North Carolina’s and their losses are higher quality. UNC does have a head-to-head victory vs. Tennessee, but it came at home, so it carries a little less weight. That would only matter as a tiebreaker anyway and this isn’t a tie.

Tennessee’s schedule puts them in the best position of the contenders chasing the No. 1 seed. The Volunteers finish the season with not just four Quad 1 opponents, but good Quad 1 games. North Carolina and especially Arizona do not have the schedules to hold Tennessee off if the Vols keep winning.  Tennessee won the first two of those and for now, it is enough to earn a spot at the top.

The bad news for Tennessee is that it will get shipped to the West Regional instead of getting to play in a regional much closer to home. Some coaches have said that they would rather play closer to home even if it meant being a lower seed. I don’t know how Rick Barnes feels about that.

Bracketology top seeds

Check out Palm’s latest bracket, Bubble Watch and full field of 68 at the Bracketology hub.

There is a bit of shuffling up and down the updated bracket, not just at the top. That makes sense when you consider that there were 136 games played Saturday. With several conferences ending their regular seasons this weekend, we won’t have any more days with anything close to that number of games.

The most notable change other than the Vols and Tar Heels swapping seeds was Baylor moving up to a No. 2 seed and nudging Kansas to a No. 3 seed after the Bears defeated the Jayhawks.

Conference tournaments start Monday with the first round of the ASUN Tournament and Selection Sunday is just two weeks away.