Let's look at some projected brackets

First up, Joe Lunardi's bracket, last updated on Friday, 2/11. He has us a #11 seed, playing #6 seed Missouri, win that game you get the winner of #3 Purdue against #14 Fairfield.

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/bracketology

He has us playing in Tampa, part of the New Orleans-Southeast bracket. Let me tell you something, I would take this in a heartbeat. Mizzou and Purdue are super teams but they would not scare me nearly as much as some of the other #3 seeds-Villanova, Wisconsin, Georgetown are the 3's and Illinois, Vandy, West Va are the other 6's.

Here is another one, last updated on Feb 8th, before we lost to Xavier but also of course before we beat SCarolina, has us #8 seed playing #9 UCLA, winner to play #1 Pitt-not a fan of that bracket to be honest.

http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/bracketology

Here is one that has us a #10 seed (updated 2/11), does not provide who we would play but if you look at the 7 seeds, our opponent would be one of the following-Temple, Illinois, Minnesota, and UNLV. I would be fine with any of those opponents, love to get another shot at Temple, we beat Illinois last year, Tubby coaches at Minn, and UNLV doesn't scare me either.

http://bracketproject.50webs.com/matrix.htm


Yet another has us a #9 seed playing #8 Cincy, winner to face #1 Ohio State. DO NOT like that one at all, so let's just forget I mentioned it-this one also updated on 2/11.

http://walterfootball.com/bracketology.php


There were a few others I looked at but they were not updated since Jan or just didn't look worthy. The most important thing I noticed is that every bracket I looked at had UGA in the tourney. THAT in itself is a promising thing. Granted a lot can happen between now and selection Sunday but there is no doubt that we appear to be on the minds of most when it comes to projecting the field-our numbers are strong enough currently to get us in. What this means is we simply can't afford to lose to SCarolina and LSU at home. Then, we really need to win against Vandy at home or Bama on the road. I feel sure that 9-7 gets us strong consideration. 10-6 gets us in regardless of the SEC tourney. At 9-7, we very well might get in without a win in the SEC tourney but a win there and I think we for sure get in. If we go 8-8, I think we probably need to at least reach the SEC title game, if not win the tourney. You think about 8-8, that would mean we go 2-4 down the stretch which is hardly encouraging to the selection committee. It would also mean we would be only 5-3 at home in SEC play, we would have lost 4 home games in 2011, we would have a record of 8-9 in 2011. I just don't think there is any way we could justify making the tourney at 8-8 if we didn't win the conference tourney.

Needless to say, the game Wednesday night is huge. Vandy is tied with us for second on the SECe, they beat us earlier this year in Nashville, they have an RPI of 11, they have won 3 games in a row-all at home I might add, they are ranked in the top 25. We have not beat an opponent on the level of Vandy all year because you have to discount the UK win a little now since they seem unable to beat anyone on the road to this point in SEC play. Let's just hope the team can put together a complete game effort much like we witnessed against Kentucky back in early January. If we can win this game, then win the two home games we should handle, I think we can sneak another road win-not sure where but I think it is possible.

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