What your NCAA Division 1 Men's College Basketball Tournament Bracket should look like 2021-2022

Baylor Bears 2020-2021 Men's Division I College Basketball National Champions

Photo Credit: https://www.ourdailybears.com/baylor-basketball/2021/4/5/22369325/the-baylor-bears-are-ncaa-tournament-champions-gonzaga-bulldogs-mens-basketball

This is my predicted NCAA Division 1 Men’s College Basketball National Championship Tournament and what the bracket will (or at least should) look like if it was completely objective and each team was forced to go to the closest location possible to play games.

Some teams do have to travel a much longer distance for the Regional, but they do actually get to play teams that are in their same geographical region of the United States when, for example, many Texas teams are playing in the San Antonio regional and thus other teams are forced to travel halfway or all the way across the country.

Nothing is or ever will be perfect with an NCAA Tournament Bracket. I tried my best to put each team in a Regional that is closest as possible to where that team is based out of but sometimes things are just not possible when every four teams (each seed) is placed in a different regional.

The seeds are very accurate in how good of a team each team is nationally. So a #1 seed is one of the top four teams in the NCAA. A #4 seed is between the 13th and 16th best team in the NCAA.

The NCAA Tournament also is not always about playing teams in your same geographical region of the United States because your team did that during the entire regular season.

Obviously this bracket is probably not going to look 100% like the real thing because the NCAA’s #1 concern is making as much money as possible.

These are the objectively best 68 teams in the NCAA (based on the completion of games after Saturday, March 12th, 2022):

Philadelphia Regional

#1 Arizona vs. #16 Saint Peter’s or #16 Yale

#2 Vermont vs. #15 Bryant

#3 Davidson vs. #14 Colgate

#4 Princeton vs. #13 Liberty

#5 Norfolk State vs. #12 Iona

#6 Tennessee vs. #11 Akron

#7 Villanova vs. #10 UConn

#8 Wagner vs. #9 Towson

Chicago Regional

#1 Murray State vs. #16 Delaware or #16 Wright State

#2 Duke vs. #15 Virginia Tech

#3 Purdue vs. #14 Dayton

#4 Longwood vs. #13 Illinois

#5 Loyola-Chicago vs. #12 Wyoming

#6 Chattanooga vs. #11 Missouri State

#7 Iowa vs. #10 Wake Forest

#8 Montana State vs. #9 Boise State

San Antonio Regional

#1 Houston vs. #16 Georgia State or #16 Texas Southern

#2 Auburn vs. #15 Jacksonville State

#3 Baylor vs. #14 Memphis

#4 Kentucky vs. #13 SMU

#5 Toledo vs. #12 Texas State

#6 Belmont vs. #11 Southern California

#7 Texas Tech vs. #10 Arkansas

#8 New Mexico State vs. #9 Grand Canyon

San Francisco Regional

#1 Gonzaga vs. #16 Cal State Fullerton or #16 Richmond

#2 South Dakota State vs. #15 A&M-Corpus Christi

#3 UAB vs. #14 Saint Louis

#4 Kansas vs. #13 LSU

#5 UCLA vs. #12 San Diego State

#6 North Texas vs. #11 Seattle U

#7 Colorado State vs. #10 Abilene Christian

#8 Saint Mary’s vs. #9 San Francisco

Final Four New Orleans

NIT Predictions

1 seeds: Drake, Providence, Ohio, Louisiana Tech

2 seeds: Middle Tennessee, Jacksonville, Stephen F. Austin, Texas

3 seeds: Furman, North Carolina, Kent St., Nicholls

4 seeds: North Dakota State, Seton Hall, South Alabama, Morehead State

5 seeds: Oral Roberts, Winthrop, Buffalo, BYU

6 seeds: Wisconsin, Notre Dame, VCU, UC Santa Barbara

7 seeds: Santa Clara, Cleveland State, Kansas City, Weber State

8 seeds: Hofstra, Utah Valley, Navy, Southern Utah

The next ten additional teams: Miami (FL), Oakland, Purdue Fort Wayne, Ohio State, St. Bonaventure, FGCU, Wofford, Fresno State, Western Kentucky, UC Irvine