NCAA bracketology roundup: Tight loss at Michigan a missed opportunity for Gophers

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

The Minnesota Gophers narrowly missed out on an opportunity to boost their postseason resume.



When Michigan guard Charles Matthews floated up a buzzer-beating jumper to top Minnesota on Tuesday, the Wolverines escaped with a 59-57 victory and prevented the Gophers from a signature win to boast when the selection committee comes knocking in March.

Minnesota has now lost three of its past five games, including an ugly one to lowly Illinois on Jan. 16. But the Gophers are still predicted by most to crack the 68-team NCAA tournament field.

Bracket Matrix is a site that compiles 86 different brackets, ranging from experts at FOX and ESPN to bloggers for SB Nation and everything in between. As of Friday afternoon, the Gophers were included on 69 of those 86 brackets (80.2 percent), down from 83.1 percent last week.

The kindest bracket to the maroon-and-gold was “Ruckles Bracketology,” which slotted Minnesota as a No. 6 seed. Seventeen different brackets didn’t include the Gophers in the tournament field, including FOX, TeamRankings.com and undergraduates at Yale. A contributing factor in that could be Minnesota’s uninspiring No. 60 NET ranking, a tool for evaluating teams based on game results, strength of schedule, net offensive and defensive efficiency and more.

A rather insane 10 (yes, TEN) teams from the Big Ten are currently in Bracket Matrix’s field of 68 teams, led by Michigan State (No. 1 seed), Michigan (No. 2) and Maryland (No. 3). Northwestern is the only team in the conference to own a winning overall record and not be currently included. For reference, the ACC landed a record nine teams in the tournament the past two seasons.

Take a look at which tournament seed 12 big-name brackets have assigned to the Gophers below: