Bracketology roundup: Badgers take small dip, but easier schedule ahead

As the college basketball season heats up, FOX Sports Wisconsin will round up what experts are saying about the chances for Wisconsin to make the NCAA tournament in March. This is the fifth edition of the 2019 bracket roundup.



We've been mentioning for a couple of weeks how Wisconsin had a couple of big test coming up which could help -- or hurt -- their NCAA tournament seeding. Well, those games have come and gone and the Badgers lost both -- 62-52 at Michigan last Saturday and 67-59 at home to Michigan State this past Tuesday.

If we look at Bracket Matrix, which now has 106 different brackets, ranging from writers at Sports Illustrated and ESPN to bloggers for SB Nation and everything in between, Wisconsin is a 4 seed, which is actually up from a 5 last Friday, although it's average seed went from 4.34 to 4.58.

However, taking a deeper look at the Matrix, a majority of them haven't been updated since Feb. 12 -- the date of UW's loss to the Spartans -- or earlier.

Using just the 43 brackets which the Matrix lists having been updated since Feb. 13, Wisconsin's average seed drops to 5.14. And with the 29 brackets updated Feb. 14, it's even lower at 5.24. Note: These do not include ESPN (stayed at a 5 seed) or CBS (dropped from 5 to 6), which are not updated on the Matrix but have updated brackets which were released in the past day. Also, The Athletic (which is not used in the Matrix) has Wisconsin as a 5 seed.

The good news, perhaps, for the Badgers is their schedule gets a tad easier over the next few weeks. Wisconsin only has one game before our next Bracketology, Monday at home against Illinois, which is 10-15. Then come games at Northwestern (12-12, 3-10 in Big Ten) and Indiana (13-11, 4-9), followed by a home game vs. Penn State (9-15, 2-11).

Also, as we type this Wisconsin is also down to No. 15 (after being No. 12 a week ago) in the NCAA's NET rankings, the system which replaced RPI this year.

Here's a look at which tournament seed 12 big-name brackets have assigned to the Badgers below and how that view has changed over the past seven days:

* -- last updated Feb. 10

** -- last updated Feb. 11
*** -- last updated Feb. 12