March Madness

Reseeding the 2022 NCAA men’s basketball Sweet 16

Well, now it gets interesting.

It’s at this point in the NCAA tournament that things generally stop making sense. The original seeds still carry weight for the teams that have survived — they give us the full picture about a team’s season thus far. But what do you do with the surprises in the field?

That’s what makes reseeding the Sweet 16 far more difficult than reseeding the second round. In the 2022 edition, Baylor, Kentucky and Auburn have all been eliminated. But Michigan, North Carolina, Miami and Saint Peter’s have survived.

At this point, the reseed centers more on how far a team can go than where it started. The top of the list will look familiar, but the rest is admittedly chaotic, and the rankings reflect as much. We like UCLA, but is Jaime Jaquez Jr. going to be healthy enough to play in the Sweet 16? How much should we care about North Carolina squandering a 25-point lead against Baylor? And what if Brady Manek can’t play? Miami beat Auburn, but was that more about Miami’s recent surge or an Auburn squad that had looked flat for weeks?

That’s what we’re trying to figure out.

If this list is anything like our original bracket, we’ll rip it up and try again with the Elite Eight.

Gonzaga Bulldogs
Kansas Jayhawks
Arizona Wildcats
Houston Cougars
Villanova Wildcats
Duke Blue Devils
Texas Tech Red Raiders

The 2022 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament will involve 68 teams playing in a single-elimination tournament to determine the men’s National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I college basketball national champion for the 2021–22 NCAA Division I men’s basketball season. The 83rd annual edition of the tournament is scheduled to begin on March 15, 2022, and will conclude with the championship game on April 4 in New Orleans, Louisiana