2026 Official Seed Watch List Thread

#1
bleedingTNorange

bleedingTNorange

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#1
As of today, 1/11/26, TeamRankings gives us pretty much a 50/50 split of being 5 seed or better, or 6 seed or worse. The by seed chances are listed below, I’ll update periodically in this post but also make a new post in the thread as well when I do so. Our most likely range is from a 3 seed to 8 seed, so that’s what I’ll focus on with teams around us and the seed list that I post, just like in years past I will use bracketmatrix.com…


3 seed
Purdue
Kansas
Michigan State
Florida
——————————
4 seed
Gonzaga
Vanderbilt
Virginia
Texas Tech
——————————
5 seed
Alabama
North Carolina
Tennessee
St. John’s
——————————
6 seed
Arkansas
BYU
Louisville
Clemson
——————————
7 seed
Saint Louis
Kentucky
Iowa
North Carolina State
——————————
8 seed
Villanova
Auburn
Utah State
Central Florida
 
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#3
#3
We can nake sure Candy drops and we replace them as a 4 seed IF we take care of business against an "easy" SEC schedule starting tonight.
 
#4
#4
cncchris33 said:
Barring an undefeated finish, I think 4 is our ceiling. Sure would be nice to get to a 3, though. Maybe a strong SECT run would bump us up a line without finishing undefeated.
Click to expand...

I think a 7-1 finish with your only loss on the road to a Top 20 Vandy could get you to that 3-line, as we’d pick up two more quality wins against Vandy and Alabama to boost our resume and metrics.

But, I think 6-2 is far more likely of a finish. We have yet to drop our obligatory and annual “weird SEC loss” to a bad team. I just don’t see us getting through the rest of this without a slip up against a Mizzou on the road or USC. Or even MSU tonight. So I’m at 6-2 as the most likely finish.
 
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#5
#5
cncchris33 said:
Barring an undefeated finish, I think 4 is our ceiling. Sure would be nice to get to a 3, though. Maybe a strong SECT run would bump us up a line without finishing undefeated.
Click to expand...
I think a 3 seed may be a reach. You would need numerous teams to drop a couple ( Purdue, Zags, etc) along w/ TN winning all but one.

If I was a betting man, I would say final four will be all one seeds as those teams are playing well. But, Anything can happen in March.
 
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#6
#6
While not a direct correlation but 3/4 #2 seeds took a L last night: Nebraska, Illinois & Iowa State. Nebraska has lost 3/4 and is dropping quick.
 
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#7
#7
vol94 said:
I think a 3 seed may be a reach. You would need numerous teams to drop a couple ( Purdue, Zags, etc) along w/ TN winning all but one.

If I was a betting man, I would say final four will be all one seeds as those teams are playing well. But, Anything can happen in March.
Click to expand...
I agree with a 3 being a reach. It isn't hard to find 12 teams who could finish the season with a better résumé than Tennessee. Plus, I just don’t see us doing what's necessary to get our own résumé to the edge of 3-seed territory. We are too erratic. Hope I'm wrong, obviously.
 
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#8
#8
cncchris33 said:
I agree with a 3 being a reach. It isn't hard to find 12 teams who could finish the season with a better résumé than Tennessee. Plus, I just don’t see us doing what's necessary to get our own résumé to the edge of 3-seed territory. We are too erratic. Hope I'm wrong, obviously.
Click to expand...
I think we will be a 4 @ best, most likely a 5. As you know, it’s all about matchups and advancing as far as possible before playing the one seed. I don’t like the matchup with any of the possible one seeds ( Duke, UConn, Michigan, Zona, Illinois, or even Houston - though we beat them 2 months ago).

We are too inconsistent and will run out of juice if we get that far, imo. Our only hope is if Gillespie hits his ceiling and Ament goes on a tear in March. That and one of our bigs can contribute offensively.

I think it’s “chalk” this yr - hope not.
 
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#11
#11
Updated list, we moved down after our last loss to Kentucky fully updated the brackets, have hung there since…


3 seed
Kansas
Nebraska
Florida
Michigan State
——————————
4 seed
Gonzaga
Texas Tech
Vanderbilt
Virginia
——————————
5 seed
Alabama
Arkansas
St. John’s
North Carolina
——————————
6 seed
Tennessee
Louisville
BYU
Saint Louis
——————————
7 seed
Kentucky
Clemson
Villanova
Utah State
——————————
8 seed
Wisconsin
Iowa
North Carolina State
Auburn
 
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#12
#12
It's all in front of the team...you get to play Bama again without their pro big and in TBA, you get Vandy twice. Just keep beating the teams you play and I think a 4 seed is very likely.
 
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#13
#13
Today’s games:
7pm: South Carolina vs. Florida
7pm: North Carolina vs. NCST**
7pm: Saint Louis vs. Rhode Island
7pm: Louisville vs. SMU
7pm: Villanova vs. Xavier
8:30pm: UCLA vs. Michigan State
9pm: Nebraska vs. Iowa**
9pm: Wisconsin vs. Ohio State
9pm: Georgia vs. Kentucky
11pm: Texas Tech vs. Arizona State


NCST & Iowa are both projected 8 seeds, they could rise with wins but at this point I’d like to not think we’re gonna be fighting for 7-8 seed so I’ll root for them to win to help our ceiling
 
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#14
#14
MoCo_Vol said:
It's all in front of the team...you get to play Bama again without their pro big and in TBA, you get Vandy twice. Just keep beating the teams you play and I think a 4 seed is very likely.
Click to expand...
Yea, there’s a lot of teams ahead of us with much tougher closes if we can take advantage of our easier close.
 
#15
#15
bleedingTNorange said:
Today’s games:
7pm: South Carolina vs. Florida
7pm: North Carolina vs. NCST
7pm: Saint Louis vs. Rhode Island
7pm: Louisville vs. SMU
8:30pm: UCLA vs. Michigan State
9pm: Nebraska vs. Iowa
11pm: Texas Tech vs. Arizona State
Click to expand...

Feel like SMU, NC State and Iowa actually have a shot to win their games also looks like Michigan is at Purdue as well may be the only game where the upset doesn't help us any, so hopefully Boilermakers take a beating.
 
#16
#16
We have 4 Quad 1 games left...

4-2 or 5-1 to end the year without dropping a Quad 2 game would keep us in the discussion for higher seeding. We need Syracuse to win 2 or 3 and stay a Quad 1 loss though.
 
#17
#17
Still think 4 seed is our ceiling. It would take a lot things going our way to get to the 3 seed line. Losing to UK is gonna bite us.
 
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#19
#19
Unfortunately 4/5 feels like our destiny and that is a tough position to advance from. We’d need a long list of things to break perfectly to sniff a 3. That’s a bummer, but we’re probably going to have to focus our voodoo on tournament miracles over seeding miracles.
 
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#20
#20
Stoerner Fumbles said:
Unfortunately 4/5 feels like our destiny and that is a tough position to advance from. We’d need a long list of things to break perfectly to sniff a 3. That’s a bummer, but we’re probably going to have to focus our voodoo on tournament miracles over seeding miracles.
Click to expand...

Well, the last 2 years we’ve had zero upsets in our bracket and had to face the toughest path possible to get to the E8 before eventually being bounced by the national runner up in both seasons.

We’re due for some luck with our bracket, but I can’t say I have confidence it will break that way for us this year given how much better the crop of 1’s seem to be than every other team this year.
 
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#23
#23
I’ll also go ahead and say this, if you want to pick the team that is a fraud this year… their name starts with a V and ends with irginia.
 
#24
#24
bleedingTNorange said:
Today’s games:
7pm: South Carolina vs. Florida
7pm: North Carolina vs. NCST**
7pm: Saint Louis vs. Rhode Island
7pm: Louisville vs. SMU
7pm: Villanova vs. Xavier
8:30pm: UCLA vs. Michigan State
9pm: Nebraska vs. Iowa**
9pm: Wisconsin vs. Ohio State
9pm: Georgia vs. Kentucky
11pm: Texas Tech vs. Arizona State


NCST & Iowa are both projected 8 seeds, they could rise with wins but at this point I’d like to not think we’re gonna be fighting for 7-8 seed so I’ll root for them to win to help our ceiling
Click to expand...
South Carolina loses
NCST wins
Rhode Island wins
SMU wins Xavier loses


Some great results for us so far
 
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