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Notes: First, automatic bids for each conference are determined by conference record with tiebreakers broken by rank in our BTI model, not by head-to-head or other conference tiebreakers. Of course, every conference except for the Ivy League determines its ultimate automatic bid with a tournament, so conference tiebreakers really don’t matter much for our purposes. Second, there is one potential regular-season rematch in the first two rounds, and that’s in the South where Kentucky and Connecticut could meet. There was already a Big East team in the other three spots where a No. 9 seed could go, and the priority is keeping teams on their true seedlines over avoiding rematches.

Breakdown: In the end, I guess all of this was just bluster. The point of this bracket projection — even in January — is to accurately determine what the Selection Committee would do if it had to select and seed the field today. With that as the overriding standard, I found myself unable to move Texas or Duke ahead of Kentucky for the last No. 1 seed. If I wanted to make a bracket of what should happen, we’d have an entirely different projection. UK is still just 13th in the BTI seeding model, but that is a seeding model based on an entire season of play and pro-rated for what’s happened so far. This is a bracket based on less than three months of play, and so sometimes we’re left with guesswork. My best guess is that Kentucky would get the nod over Duke and Texas right now.

Moving In as At-large: North Carolina, Charlotte, Richmond, Florida

Moving In as Automatic: William & Mary, Dayton, Virginia Commonwealth, Mississippi State

Moving Out as At-large: Maine (America East), Maryland (ACC), East Tennessee State (Atlantic Sun), Kent State (Mid-American), Sam Houston State (Southland)

Moving Out as Automatic: Vermont (America East), Virginia (ACC), Campbell (Atlantic Sun), Northern Illinois (Mid-American), Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (Southland)

As expected, there’s been a lot of movement and turnover in the field. Four at-large teams have moved out, and it’s no surprise that three of them come from mid-major conferences. As major-conference teams get opportunity after opportunity to chalk up impressive wins, teams like Dayton, Virginia Commonwealth and William & Mary are more worried about avoiding destructive losses with few chances to pad their profiles. A pair of Atlantic-10 teams — Charlotte and Richmond — do move into the field with Charlotte making a massive leap after the 49ers followed up a road win at LaSalle with a home win over previously conference-undefeated Temple.

ACC: I mentioned movement in the last paragraph, and no team had a bigger freefall than Clemson. The Tigers lost by 13 at home to Duke before falling by six at Boston College. Those two losses drop Oliver Purnell’s team to 3-4 in conference and from a No. 5 seed to a No. 12 and barely in the field. Thinks can change that quickly with a bunched middle of the field, especially this early in the season.

Duke remains on the edge of the No. 1 seedline, but the Blue Devils’ three losses are an eyesore to the committee. With three of the next four on the road — including a trip to Georgetown on Saturday — the Blue Devils are likely to chalk up several more quality wins as well as a loss or two. The strength of Duke’s schedule has been a blessing and a curse, giving the Blue Devils a chance at numerous quality wins but also a chance at more losses than a typical top-10 team. Those extra losses have likely been the difference between a No. 1 and No. 2 seed in each of the past two seasons.

North Carolina moves into the field with a good road win at NC State, but the Tar Heels’ hold on a spot is not strong, especially with trips to Virginia Tech and Maryland and a visit from Duke looming after Virginia’s trip to Chapel Hill on Sunday. Maryland takes over as the automatic from the ACC, but the Terrapins are in much better shape than the previous holder, Virginia. The Terps would be in the field even without the auto bid, and they certainly appear a likely NCAA Tournament team but upcoming trips to Clemson and FSU could temporarily drop Gary Williams’ club from the field. Virginia Tech is floating on the periphery after an overtime win over UVa, though that weak non-league schedule continues to hurt Seth Greenberg’s team.

Bid Breakdown:

Duke (No. 2)
Georgia Tech (No. 5)
Wake Forest (No. 6)
Florida State (No. 8)
Maryland (No. 11)
North Carolina (No. 11, seventh-to-last in)
Clemson (No. 12, second-to-last in)

Big 12: Texas’ bad week ended in a disastrous second half in Storrs, but the Longhorns are still solidly on the No. 2 line. Rick Barnes’ team begins a potentially treacherous stretch, starting at home against Baylor on Saturday followed by trips to both Oklahoma schools before hosting Kansas on Feb. 8. Two more losses in that stretch will make a No. 1 seed hard to come by.

Travis Ford’s Oklahoma State Cowboys are a team on the move, going from just in the field last week to fairly comfortable as a No. 6 seed a week later. Wins over Kansas State and Texas A&M will do that. OSU travels to fellow at-large team Missouri on Saturday. As for the K-State, Frank Martin’s club narrowly avoided a second loss since our last projection thanks to a late comeback and two-point win at Baylor. Now, K-State hosts Kansas on Saturday attempting to unseat the would-be No. 1 team in the nation. Oh, and it’s a bit of a rivalry for the folks in Manhattan as well.

At the bubble, Texas A&M and Baylor each had difficult losses in the mid-week. The Aggies haven’t beaten a top-90 Pomeroy team since defeating Minnesota on Thanksgiving Sunday, and a road trip to Norman represents the only 90-plus team on the remainder of the schedule. Baylor travels to Austin this weekend, but the schedule gets a bit better thereafter. Texas Tech sits at just 2-4 in conference, but the Red Raiders are still among the last 10 out because of how brutal the early conference schedule has been. It doesn’t get a whole lot easier with a trip to College Station on Saturday, but it’s a start.

Bid Breakdown:

Kansas (No. 1)
Texas (No. 2)
Kansas State (No. 2)
Oklahoma State (No. 6)
Missouri (No. 8)
Baylor (No. 9)
Texas A&M (No. 11, fifth-to-last in)
Texas Tech (fifth-to-last out)

Big East: Connecticut did a favor for fellow conference member Villanova by knocking off Texas and giving the Cats a shot at that No. 1 seed. Nova would have replaced Kentucky in my projection even if Texas had lost, though. Syracuse, meanwhile, remains the top team in the field thanks to a long list of quality wins, the latest a slap across the face to arch rival Georgetown. Should Kansas win at K-State, though, the Jayhawks could pass the Orange, who play lowly DePaul this weekend — not that No. 1 vs. No. 2 team in the field matters much, especially in January.

Georgetown has a chance to help itself and its league when the Hoyas host Duke on Saturday. The Hoyas are the highest-seeded four-loss team after a distressing loss at rival Syracuse on Monday. The other Big East team on the No. 3 seedline, West Virginia, came back to defeat Ohio State on Saturday before winning in its bye against DePaul. Visits from Louisville and Pittsburgh are next for the ‘Neers.

Further down the seed chart are UConn, Louisville and Cincinnati. The Huskies undid much of the benefit of beating Texas by losing — and looking feeble while doing it — at Providence. Connecticut, though, at least has a signature win to hang its hat on with many more opportunities to come in conference play. Louisville and Cincinnati are among the last 10 in the field, and both are hovering right around .500 in conference after UofL defeated Cincinnati last weekend. The Cards now travel to West Virginia before hosting Connecticut on Big Monday, while Cincinnati hopes to avoid UConn’s fate when it hosts Providence on Saturday.

Seton Hall did nothing for its hopes at an at-large bid with an overtime loss at USF on Thursday. Similarly, Notre Dame’s 18-point loss at Villanova and St. John’s losses to Villanova and Pittsburgh are starting to give us some separation between the eight teams in the field and those trying to get in.

Bid Breakdown:

Syracuse (No. 1)
Villanova (No. 1)
West Virginia (No. 3)
Georgetown (No. 3)
Pittsburgh (No. 5)
Connecticut (No. 9)
Cincinnati (No. 10, ninth-to-last in)
Louisville (No. 10, eighth-to-last in)
Seton Hall (seventh-to-last out)
Notre Dame (eighth-to-last out)

Big Ten: Purdue’s narrow victory over Wisconsin on Thursday gets the Boilermakers atop the No. 3 seedline, ready to pounce should K-State or Georgetown lose this weekend. With three straight wins, including two quality ones, Matt Painter’s team has moved past that three-game skid earlier in January, but the Boilers still don’t yet look like the team that started 14-0. On the positive side, the defensive performances against Wisconsin and Michigan were better than the previous four.

Wisconsin continues to struggle to find its form without the injured Jon Leuer. There’s nothing wrong with losing by three at Purdue, but Wisconsin struggled in home wins against Michigan and Penn State and waited until Trevon Hughes took over in the final minutes to find its way past Northwestern in Evanston. In between was a borderline non-competitive loss at Ohio State. A 3-2 record isn’t bad, but the play has been spotty. Wisconsin was top-15 good with Leuer; without him, the Badgers could slip to the 6-8 seed range.

Minnesota performed the rare feat of remaining the last team in the field for two straight weeks. The Gophers couldn’t hold on to a lead at home against Michigan State on Saturday but managed to barely do so against Northwestern in Minneapolis on Tuesday. Tubby Smith’s team continues to struggle in halfcourt offense and now plays three of its next four on the road, including a trip to Columbus on Sunday. Elsewhere near the bubble, Northwestern almost followed its comeback victory over Illinois on Saturday with another at Minnesota but fell just short. The Illini, meanwhile, looked good against a bad Penn State team on Wednesday after the aforementioned loss to NU. Both teams have a lot of winning left to do.

Bid Breakdown:

Michigan State (No. 2)
Purdue (No. 3)
Wisconsin (No. 5)
Ohio State (No. 5)
Minnesota (No. 12, last in)
Illinois (ninth-to-last out)

Pac-10: With a win at Arizona State on Thursday, California looks like it might have found some separation in the Pac-10. The Bears remain the only conference squad in the field and are likely to be the only one to know it’s in the NCAAs before heading to Los Angeles for the Pac-10 Tournament in March. The Bears will take on the latest second-best team in the conference when it travels to Tucson on Sunday.

Arizona, despite its 11-9 record, is actually in the best position of any other team to make the field. Now 5-3 in conference after defeating Arizona State and Stanford since the last projection, Sean Miller’s team could sniff the field with a 12-6 conference mark and a win or two in the conference tourney.

With a sweep at the hands of the LA schools last weekend, Washington is now in very bad shape so soon after looking dominant in Seattle against Stanford and Cal. The only other NCAA-relevant Pac-10 squad is Arizona State, but the Sun Devils have now lost two straight at home after winning their previous four.

Bid Breakdown:

California (No. 8)

SEC: There’s more to the SEC than Kentucky, and a lot of that more is in Nashville. The Vanderbilt Commodores join Villanova, Michigan State and Kansas as the only conference unbeatens among major-conference teams. Vandy came back to beat Auburn on Saturday before defeating Tennessee by nine in Knoxville on Wednesday. I was going to write, “Led by A.J. Ogilvy, Vanderbilt is one of the best shooting teams in the nation,” but really everyone on this team shoots it well, and Ogilvy isn’t more deserving of a shoutout than Jeffrey Taylor or John Jenkins or Jermaine Beal.

Mississippi’s wins at weaklings LSU and Auburn put the Rebels comfortably in the middle of the field, but things are far less cozy up the road in Starkville. After consecutive losses at Alabama and Arkansas, the Bulldogs have dropped off the NCAA Tournament radar. MSU simply couldn’t stop Courtney Fortson in the second half on Thursday in Fayetteville, and, as a result, Rick Stansbury’s team now finds itself looking up at about a dozen teams between it and the at-large cutline.

Elsewhere on the SEC bubble, things are much better for Florida and South Carolina. By taking care of South Carolina and Georgia at home, the Gators have moved into the field, albeit with little margin. The next five games should tell us most of what we need to know about Billy Donovan’s club — at Tennessee, at Alabama, Mississippi State, at South Carolina, Xavier. A 3-2 record would put the Gators in an advantageous position. A fifth SEC East team is now knocking on the door after the Gamecocks’ memorable win over Kentucky on Tuesday. The win is only South Carolina’s third against top-100 teams, but few fellow bubble teams have a feather in their cap as pretty as a win over the last undefeated team.

Bid Breakdown:

Kentucky (No. 1)
Vanderbilt (No. 4)
Tennessee (No. 6)
Mississippi (No. 7)
Florida (No. 12, third-to-last in)
South Carolina (last out)

Mid-Majors: Last week, I wrote that the Atlantic 10 had “five terrific candidates” for at-large berths, and Charlotte hardly crossed my mind. Beating Temple changes that. I’d still guess that 3-4 bids is more likely for the league, but with six teams in play and a potential bid to steal in the conference tournament, five is certainly possible. Dayton’s one-point loss at St. Joseph’s was one of those can’t-happen events for a mid-major bubble team. As if to add insult to injury, three days later, St. Joe’s lost at home to 8-12 UMass. That same night, the Flyers lost a second-straight one-point game, this one at home to Rhode Island, who is now sitting pretty as a No. 7 seed.

New Mexico made a statement with a home win over Brigham Young on Wednesday. The Lobos had lost their previous two games against top-tier Mountain West teams — UNLV and San Diego State — so this win was a needed one to prove the non-conference play wasn’t somehow a fluke. As long as BYU, New Mexico and UNLV are able to avoid losses to the bottom teams in the Mountain West, all three should dance in March.

Bid Breakdown:

New Mexico (No. 3)
Brigham Young (No. 4)
Gonzaga (No. 4)
Temple (No. 5)
Xavier (No. 6)
Northern Iowa (No. 7)
Rhode Island (No. 7)
Butler (No. 7)
UAB (No. 8)
UNLV (No. 9)
Saint Mary’s (No. 9, 10th-to-last in)
Siena (No. 10)
Charlotte (No. 11, sixth-to-last in)
Old Dominion (No. 12)
Richmond (No. 12, fourth-to-last in)
William & Mary (second-to-last out)
Dayton (third-to-last out)
Virginia Commonwealth (fourth-to-last out)
Wichita State (sixth-to-last out)
San Diego State (10th-to-last out)