Notre Dame remained a No. 6 seed in ESPN's latest projections Monday, but shifted brackets again -- and shifted opponents after Illinois' loss to Iowa this weekend.
The Irish will go to Lexington to play everyone's favorite mid-major, Winthrop, in the South Region. The winner, according to Joe Lunardi, would face either No. 3 Memphis or No. 14 Wright State. Six Big East schools remain locks for the NCAA Tournament.
At CBS Sportsline, writer Gary Parrish has the Irish as a No. 4 seed, and as No. 16 in his Top 26 with the question "Is there a quieter 23-win team from a BCS league in the nation?"
As for rankings, Notre Dame moved up from 22nd to 20th in the latest Associated Press media poll and from No. 17 to No. 16 in the ESPN/USA Today coaches' poll.
As for Jerome and conference tournament issues, the CAA, MAAC and West Coast Conference wrap up tonight. George Mason and mascot Gunston go for an upset of top-seeded VCU at 7 p.m. in the Colonial, which would give last year's Final Four team an unexpected NCAA berth. Niagara and Siena play in the MAAC and Gonzaga plays Santa Clara for the WCC title.
Our second round of Jerome picks were due today, so here's what we got. ACC -- Maryland
Atlantic 10 -- Xavier
Big East -- Pittsburgh
Big Ten -- Ohio State
Big 12 -- Texas
Big West -- Long Beach State
Conference USA -- Memphis
Mid-American -- Team LeBron (otherwise known as Akron)
MEAC -- Hampton
Mountain West -- Air Force
Pac 10 -- UCLA
SEC -- Tennessee
Southland -- Texas A&M Corpus Christi
SWAC -- Jackson State
WAC -- Nevada
We'll address our breakdown prediction of the Big East Tournament on Tuesday.
-By Michael Rothstein of The Journal Gazette

Comments