Following a Saturday slate of college basketball games in which Duke's Cooper Flagg put up 42 points against Notre Dame before Auburn's Johni Broome suffered a national-landscape-shifting sprained ankle against South Carolina, the Blue Devils have overtaken the Tigers as the betting favorite to win the 2025 men's NCAA tournament.

However, with seven Quad 1 wins and a No. 1 ranking in most of the metrics on the team sheets, Auburn still has a relatively firm grip on the projected No. 1 overall seed in our latest rendition of bracketology.

There are still two months left until Selection Sunday, though, and suffice it to say, Auburn has more/bigger hurdles in the SEC than Duke has in the ACC. We'll see if the Tigers can hang onto the cushion they've built.

As a reminder, the projected champion (auto bid) of each conference is based on the current league standings. (In the cases where multiple teams are tied atop the loss column, the one with the best predictive metrics gets the projected bid.)

[If you have any questions on what goes into the bracketology process or want to argue about a certain team's spot (or lack of a spot) in the projected field, you can find me begrudgingly on Twitter and occasionally on Bluesky.]

With that out of the way, let's start with the full bracket before some brief commentary on the current state of the bubble and the top seed line. Following that, we have a full conference-by-conference rundown, highlighting some of the biggest changes from one week ago.

The Projected Bracket

EAST REGION (Newark)

Raleigh, NC
1. Duke vs. 16. Bryant
8. West Virginia vs. 9. New Mexico

Providence, RI
4. Michigan vs. 13. South Alabama
5. Connecticut vs. 12. Bradley

Denver, CO
3. Houston vs. 14. New Mexico State
6. Ole Miss vs. 11. Saint Mary's

Cleveland, OH
2. Tennessee vs. 15. Nebraska-Omaha
7. St. John's vs. 10. Nebraska

MIDWEST REGION (Indianapolis)

Milwaukee, WI
1. Iowa State vs. 16. Colgate / Long Island
8. Oklahoma vs. 9. Pittsburgh

Providence, RI
4. Michigan State vs. 13. Saint Louis
5. Texas A&M vs. 12. McNeese

Denver, CO
3. Memphis vs. 14. Miami (OH)
6. Baylor vs. 11. Ohio State / Dayton

Raleigh, NC
2. Florida vs. 15. Merrimack
7. Louisville vs. 10. Iowa

SOUTH REGION (Atlanta)

Lexington, KY
1. Auburn vs. 16. Howard / Morehead State
8. Clemson vs. 9. UCLA

Seattle, WA
4. Illinois vs. 13. Yale
5. Gonzaga vs. 12. Samford

Milwaukee, WI
3. Kentucky vs. 14. Northern Colorado
6. Purdue vs. 11. Texas Tech / Creighton

Cleveland, OH
2. Marquette vs. 15. William & Mary
7. Arizona vs. 10. Missouri

WEST REGION (San Francisco)

Lexington, KY
1. Alabama vs. 16. Southern
8. North Carolina vs. 9. Maryland

Seattle, WA
4. Oregon vs. 13. High Point
5. Utah State vs. 12. Lipscomb

Wichita, KS
3. Mississippi State vs. 14. Utah Valley
6. Wisconsin vs. 11. UC Irvine

Wichita, KS
2. Kansas vs. 15. Cleveland State
7. Georgia vs. 10. San Diego State

Ranking the No. 1 Seeds

1. Auburn Tigers (15-1, NET: 1, RES: 1.0, QUAL: 2.0)

2. Duke Blue Devils (14-2, NET: 2, RES: 4.7, QUAL: 2.3)

3. Iowa State Cyclones (14-1, NET: 7, RES: 7.0, QUAL: 5.3)

4. Alabama Crimson Tide (14-2, NET: 8, RES: 3.0, QUAL: 6.7)

5. Florida Gators (15-1, NET: 5, RES: 9.3, QUAL: 7.3)

6. Tennessee Volunteers (15-1, NET: 3, RES: 6.0, QUAL: 12.7)

7. Marquette Golden Eagles (14-2, NET: 13, RES: 6.0, QUAL: 12.7)

The colossal story in college basketball at the moment is the status of Johni Broome's ankle. However, from a bracketology perspective, no change for Auburn, which was able to survive a scare at South Carolina despite losing what was the front-runner for National Player of the Year to a significant ankle sprain.

Without pulling too much at the hypothetical "What could happen to Auburn?" thread, we'll just point out here that 2018-19 Duke lost three of the six games that Zion Williamson missed at the end of the regular season, yet still got the No. 1 overall seed in large part because it reasserted its dominance once he returned for the ACC tournament. Could be a similar situation with Broome and the Tigers, though we'll cross that bridge if/when necessary.

Directly behind Auburn, it's a tight race between Iowa State and Duke for No. 2 overall. The Blue Devils have better metrics, but the Cyclones' lone loss came against Auburn on a neutral floor on a last-second shot. Could go either way, but we're giving an ever-so-slight edge to Duke. That said, if Iowa State goes 2-0 this week—vs. Kansas, at West Virginia—it would be all but guaranteed to surge back ahead of Duke in our next projection of the field.

As far as the SEC cluster at Nos. 4-6 goes, Alabama's four Quad 1A wins, nine victories over the top two Quadrants and substantially tougher NCSOS pushes the Crimson Tide to the top, even with the additional tally in its loss column.

Tennessee dropping all the way from No. 2 to No. 6 after a week in which it split two Quad 1 road games sure seems harsh, but the Volunteers were the only team in this top tier to have lost a game in the past seven days, with that 30-point shellacking at Florida serving as a de facto tiebreaker between the two.

And through no fault of its own, Marquette slipped slightly from No. 6 to No. 7. The Golden Eagles did need to rally from an early 14-point deficit to win at home against Georgetown in what was their only game of the week, but no penalty for that close call against a solid opponent. Florida simply catapulted from No. 10 up to No. 5.

10 Words on Each of the 10 'Bubbliest' Teams

Fifth-to-Last In: Saint Mary's Gaels (15-3)—Metrics are solid, but just 4-3 vs. top three Quadrants.

Fourth-to-Last In: Ohio State Buckeyes (10-6)—Might live to regret blowing that late lead vs. Oregon.

Third-to-Last In: Dayton Flyers (11-5)—After Q4 loss to Massachusetts, Flyers hanging by a thread.

Second-to-Last In: Texas Tech Red Raiders (11-4)—Finally picked up a quality win this week (at BYU).

Last Team In: Creighton Bluejays (10-6)—Just barely back in after a road win over Butler.

****CUT LINE****

First Team Out: Indiana Hoosiers (13-4)—Got pummeled in all four games against projected tournament teams.

Second Team Out: Vanderbilt Commodores (13-3)—Winless week puts the 'Dores in "work to do" department.

Third Team Out: Drake Bulldogs (14-2)—Quality road win over Bradley to re-enter the at-large conversation.

Fourth Team Out: Arizona State Sun Devils (10-5)—Losses in four of last six, most of them blowouts.

Fifth Team Out: Texas Longhorns (11-5)—Battled Auburn and Tennessee, but moral victories count for little.

ACC Summary

5 Teams in the Projected Field (by Overall Seed): 2. Duke, 27. Louisville, 31. Clemson, 32. North Carolina, 34. Pittsburgh

Also Considered: SMU, Wake Forest

Biggest Change: Cardinals' climb continues; Pittsburgh flops

Over the previous two seasons under Kenny Payne, Louisville went 12-52 overall and 5-35 in the ACC.

In year No. 1 under Pat Kelsey, the Cardinals are 12-5 overall and 5-1 in the ACC, scoring a 10-point home win over Clemson and a four-point road win over Pittsburgh in the past seven days. They also previously knocked off North Carolina, and their lone loss in league play was the game against Duke in which they jumped out to an early 14-point lead before eventually falling victim to the league's juggernaut.

It's just about indisputable at this point that Louisville has the second-best resume in the ACC and that Kelsey needs to be on the short list of candidates for national coach of the year for this incredible one-year turnaround.

While Louisville benefited from its road win over Pitt, the Panthers tumbled a few seed lines for both losing that game and getting absolutely pummeled 76-47 by Duke. As was the case in the previous week for SMU against Duke, no one particularly expected Pitt to win that game. Still, you'd expect a tournament team to at least keep it within 25 points, you know?

Fortunately for the Panthers, the nonconference schedule still looks stout. Wins over Ohio State, West Virginia and LSU still hold up nicely. Even the win over Murray State is looking decent. And no real shame in the losses away from home against Wisconsin and Mississippi State—though the 33-point margin of the latter was ugly.

As a result, they're still somewhat comfortably in the projected field as a No. 9 seed with a key week (at FSU, vs. Clemson) on tap. Win both and they'll be in excellent dancing shape once again.

Big 12 Summary

7 Teams in the Projected Field (by Overall Seed): 3. Iowa State, 8. Kansas, 11. Houston, 21. Baylor, 25. Arizona, 30. West Virginia, 44. Texas Tech

Also Considered: Arizona State, UCF, Cincinnati, BYU, TCU

Biggest Change: Jayhawks and Bears kick two bubble teams to the curb

One week ago, Arizona State was our fifth-to-last team in, while Cincinnati was our fourth team out, both with a massive week of opportunity at their doorstep: ASU playing at Kansas and hosting Baylor, Cincinnati doing the opposite.

For either one, a split would have been a net positive, while a sweep would've been a seed-catapulting coup.

Instead, the bubble teams went a combined 0-4, Arizona State's overtime loss to Baylor the only one that was particularly competitive in the end.

In all four games, offense was quite the struggle for the underdogs. Cincinnati was held below 50 points in each game. Arizona State was completely shut down in the second half against Kansas and only briefly got into a scoring rhythm late in regulation against Baylor.

Just a rough showing by teams who somewhat desperately needed wins, instead falling to a combined 1-7 in Big 12 play. (Arizona State's home win over Colorado was the one exception to the rule.) The Sun Devils are now narrowly on the wrong side of the cut line, while the Bearcats barely merit consideration at this point.

Conversely, it was a fine week for Baylor and Kansas, the latter sneaking up to a No. 2 seed after its third consecutive suffocating victory. (Kansas also beat UCF by 51 the previous weekend.)

Let's see if they can build on that momentum, though. Baylor plays at Arizona on Tuesday, while Kansas has to travel to face Iowa State on Wednesday.

Big East Summary

4 Teams in the Projected Field (by Overall Seed): 7. Marquette, 19. Connecticut, 26. St. John's, 45. Creighton

Also Considered: Georgetown, Villanova

Biggest Change: Creighton slides back into the field

Sometimes, it's better to be lucky than good.

That isn't to say Creighton's win this past week at Butler was lucky. It was a hard-fought game throughout, with the Bluejays eventually prevailing 80-76 behind massive efforts by Ryan Kalkbrenner (26 points, nine rebounds, six blocks, three steals) and Steven Ashworth (22 points, 12 rebounds, nine assists).

The luck was the other things that happened around the country.

For one, we already mentioned Kansas climbed after a strong week. That means Creighton's marquee win over the Jayhawks looks even better than it did seven days ago. (In fact, it's now a Quad 1A win for the Bluejays, which was not the case when Kansas was 21st in the NET three wins ago.)

But more so than that, the bubble imploded around Creighton.

The Bluejays weren't even among our first five out one week ago, but it was a week of absolute carnage for teams on the bubble. Vanderbilt, St. Bonaventure, Arizona State, Washington State, Arkansas, Penn State and Cincinnati were each within either our last 10 in or our first four out before each suffering multiple losses.

Indiana was our first team out one week ago, but Creighton leapfrogged the Hoosiers after their 25-point loss to Iowa.

By comparison, winning at Butler looks pretty darn good. And now that the Bluejays are back within the top 50 in most of the metrics with five total wins against the top two Quadrants, they've done just enough to sneak back into the projected field.

With a big game at Connecticut on tap for this coming Saturday, they could either really solidify their spot in the bracket or continue their dance around the cut line.

Big Ten Summary

11 Teams in the Projected Field (by Overall Seed): 13. Oregon, 14. Michigan State, 15. Michigan, 16. Illinois, 22. Purdue, 24. Wisconsin, 33. Maryland, 36. UCLA, 39. Nebraska, 40. Iowa, 42. Ohio State

Also Considered: Indiana

Biggest Change: Greetings, Hawkeyes

For the first time all season, the Iowa Hawkeyes have found their way into the projected field, albeit, with the type of bubble resume that can make a bracketologist's blood boil: zero great wins, but good enough metrics and zero bad losses.

Iowa did pick up two nice wins this past week, both at home. The Hawkeyes rallied from a 15-point second-half deficit to beat Nebraska in overtime, and then they smoked a bubble-y Indiana team by a final score of 85-60.

They are now 5-0 vs. Quad 2, which is quite commendable. There are only 18 teams in the country with more wins against the top two Quads than the Hawkeyes have.

But they're winless against Quad 1 in four tries, including a 31-point loss to Wisconsin, and the only other seven games on their schedule were all Quad 4 wins by an average margin of 29 points.

All of a sudden, though, their metrics look great.

When I pulled resume data last Sunday, Iowa was not top 45 in any of the seven metrics, and was in fact 70th in KPI. But now? Ranking 52nd in NET is the only one in which the Hawkeyes aren't in the top 45, all the way up to No. 43 in KPI.

Behold, the power of trouncing a decent opponent by 25 points.

Can they now survive the dreaded West Coast road trip, though?

If the games don't get postponed due to the wildfires in California, the Hawkeyes are supposed to play at USC on Tuesday and at UCLA on Friday. And with nary a Quad 1 win to their credit, getting swept on that road trip would be a devastating blow to their case for a bid. (However, a win at UCLA would be massive.)

SEC Summary

11 Teams in the Projected Field (by Overall Seed): 1. Auburn, 4. Alabama, 5. Florida, 6. Tennessee, 9. Kentucky, 10. Mississippi State, 17. Texas A&M, 23. Ole Miss, 28. Georgia, 29. Oklahoma, 38. Missouri

Also Considered: Vanderbilt, Texas, Arkansas

Biggest Change: Missouri vaults in; Vanderbilt and Arkansas drop out

There was some noteworthy SEC shuffling near the top of the bracket, specifically Tennessee slipping from No. 2 to No. 6 after getting absolutely bludgeoned at Florida.

However, those six teams in our top 10 overall were also in our top 10 overall one week ago, and the more intriguing movement within this conference has taken place down along the bubble.

The forward movement comes courtesy of Georgia and Missouri.

After home wins over Kentucky and Oklahoma in the past week, the Bulldogs climb two full lines to a No. 7 seed, which is uncharted territory. I've been doing bracketology for two decades at this point, and I legitimately don't think I have ever penciled in UGA for a No. 7 seed or better. Even when they briefly made an appearance at No. 24 in the AP poll in January 2011, they weren't top 70 on KenPom.

On the Missouri front, the Tigers won home games against LSU and Vanderbilt to finally add something to their resume aside from the home win over Kansas. Still don't love this profile (13-0 at home and winless away from Mizzou Arena). But the metrics are solid, there are no remotely bad losses and they do at least have one great win. That gets the Tigers in, slightly ahead of aforementioned Iowa.

On the flip side of the coin, both Vanderbilt and Arkansas went 0-2 this week, the Commodores losing to Mississippi State and Missouri while the Razorbacks lost at home to Ole Miss and Florida.

It wasn't a devastating week for either team, but neither one had a particularly stellar resume in the first place. Arkansas is now 1-5 against the top two Quadrants—though, at least the one win was great, on a neutral court against Michigan—and Vanderbilt is still searching for its first win against a projected tournament team.

For both, plenty of opportunities are still ahead. They both had better win their mid-week game, though, with Arkansas playing at LSU and Vanderbilt hosting South Carolina. The SEC's bubble teams cannot afford to drop games against those two.

Mid-Majors Summary (AAC, A-10, MVC, MWC, WCC)

9 Teams in the Projected Field (by Overall Seed): 12. Memphis, 18. Utah State, 20. Gonzaga, 35. New Mexico, 37. San Diego State, 41. Saint Mary's, 43. Dayton, 48. Bradley, 51. Saint Louis

Also Considered: Drake, VCU, Boise State, St. Bonaventure

Biggest Change: Washington State and St. Bonaventure free fall

As a mid-major, you don't need to be perfect in league play to earn an at-large bid.

However, there are games you can afford to lose and others that you can't.

And after looking good at Nos. 39 and 41 overall in our seed list one week ago, both St. Bonaventure and Washington State added a loss in each of those categories.

The much more forgivable of the losses were the Bonnies' game at Saint Louis and the Cougars' game at Gonzaga. St. Bonaventure was actually a 3.5-point dog in its game, and no one expected Washington State to win as a 17.5-point dog at The Kennel.

Had they lost those games and taken care of business in the others, hardly anything would've changed.

Instead, the Cougars lost by one on a last-second three-pointer in overtime at home against 6-14 Pacific, followed by the Bonnies losing by one on a last-second three-pointer in overtime at home against 9-7 La Salle.

For both, it was a devastating Quad 4 loss, poking a great big hole in resumes that were mostly held together by their lack of bad losses. Neither one has much of a case for a bid at this point.

Also of note, Saint Louis is a bid thief right now, the lone team still undefeated in A-10 play, while Dayton narrowly hangs onto its spot as an at-large team in spite of a rather dreadful loss of its own at Massachusetts. Those nonconference wins over Connecticut and Marquette are doing some seriously heavy lifting for the Flyers, who can ill afford to pick up another loss within the next two weeks.

Other 21 Leagues Summary

21 Teams in the Projected Field (by Overall Seed): 46. UC Irvine, 47. McNeese, 49. Samford, 50. Lipscomb, 52. South Alabama, 53. Yale, 54. High Point, 55. Northern Colorado, 56. Miami (OH), 57. New Mexico State, 58. Utah Valley, 59. William & Mary, 60. Cleveland State, 61. Nebraska-Omaha, 62. Merrimack, 63. Bryant, 64. Southern, 65. Howard, 66. Morehead State, 67. Colgate, 68. Long Island

Also Considered: UC San Diego, Liberty

Biggest Change: UC Irvine wins first battle with UC San Diego

Of these 21 leagues, there's little question that the Big West is most likely to produce a legitimate at-large candidate.

UC San Diego did suffer a Quad 4 home loss to Seattle back in mid-November, but the Tritons' resume otherwise looks mighty fine, buoyed by going on the road and handing Utah State its only loss of the season thus far.

On Saturday night, though, the Anteaters went on the road and knocked off UCSD for their best win of the year. The Tritons shot 6-of-35 from three for the game and really couldn't buy a bucket in the final 10 minutes, while their undersized frontcourt had no answer for UCI's 7'1" Bent Leuchten, who went for 23 points, 13 rebounds and a pair of blocks.

Now in possession of a slightly absurd 11 wins away from home, UCI ranks top 40 in the resume metrics, neck-and-neck with the likes of North Carolina and Arizona in that regard.

And Irvine ought to be favored in every game left on its schedule, with KenPom giving the Anteaters an 8 percent chance of running the table in Big West play.

If they go 19-1 with the lone loss coming in the rematch against UC San Diego, the loser of the hypothetical rubber match in the Big West championship game could have quite the argument for what would be the league's first at-large bid since 2005.