Bracketology 2010

Bracketology is the science of predicting what a tournament bracket will look like, who the tournament field will be, what seeds the teams will be, who will be in, and who will be out.  Bracketology was made famous by Joe Linardi of ESPN, who is a professional bracketologist.  In recent years Bracketology 2008 and 2009 bracketology became a craze among basketball fans.  In the past there was always Bracketology about the NCAA Tournament but this past year there was also an NIT bracketology taking place around the country.

Why do people participate in bracketology?

Because it is fun.  Everyone wants to know if their team is in or not, and it's a blast to try and correctly predict the field.  It's also fun watching teams on the bubble because any particular late season loss could burst their bubble.  The greatest job in the world would be to be a professional bracketologist and get paid to predict who will make a tournament and what their seed will be. 

Joe Linardi has become famous for correctly picking 99% of the NCAA tournament teams.  The NCAA Tournament selection committee selects the teams and nobody knows who they will select.  Outsiders can only predict who they think will make the tournament.   Every year there are great debates about which teams are going to get an at large bid to the tournament, which teams are "on the bubble" and which teams are out.

The 2010 field of 65 is finally decided.  The overall #1 seed went to the Kansas Jayhawks.  The Kentucky Wildcats got the 2nd overall #1 seed.  In a bit of a surprise the 3rd number one seed went to the Duke Blue Devils and Syracuse got the last number one seed.  Joe Linardi correctly picked each member of the tournament field except he had Florida out. 

The teams who had their bubbles burst and were snubbed by the selection committee were Virginia Tech, Illinois, and Mississippi State.

The first round games will be played Thursday and Friday and the second round games will be played Saturday and Sunday to narrow the field down to the Sweet 16.  The heavy favorite to win it all this year is the Kansas Jayhawks.  Most national sports writers and ESPN alanlysts predict the Jayhawks will run the table.  Dick Vitale predicts John Wall and the Kentucky Wildcats will cut down the nets.  Be sure to fill out your brackets and use the comment form below to tell us who you think will win it all.

 Swet 16 Update:

The original field of 65 is now wittled down to 16.  There have been a record amount of high seed upsets in this tournament.  The most surprising thus far was Northern Iowa knocking off the overall number one seed Kansas.  The other #1 seeds are all still alive and so are the two seeds, with the exception of Villanova.  The biggest conference disappointment so far has been the Big East, which some are now calling the Big Least.  They are down to only two teams remaining - Syracuse and Villanova.  Las Vegas now has the Kentucky Wildcats as the favorites to win it all at 2 -1 odds.  The Wilcats face off against surprising Cornell and when they win they will face the winner of the West Virginia vs Washington matchup.

A great message board to discuss bracketology is SECfanatics.com, an SEC Sports message board that also has forums for all NCAA basketball discussion.