The college basketball season is here, with the four-month journey to Selection Sunday officially getting underway Monday. This could well be the final season with the NCAA tournament in its current form, with expansion talk continuing to heat up and talk of a 76-team field to be implemented in the 2026–27 season remaining the most common model. For now though, just 68 spots remain, 37 for at-large teams as well as the 31 automatic qualifiers.
Doing bracketology (a résumé-driven exercise) before anyone has a résumé does in some ways feel like putting the cart before the horse, but we can mock out what the field of 68 would look like based solely on Sports Illustrated’s preseason rankings by pulling our projected conference champions and filling the rest with our highest-rated teams. This will all change quite a bit once the games actually tip off, but if you want to start daydreaming about seeding and matchups now, here’s your chance.
