What the 2020 NCAA Tournament Bracket Might Have Looked Like

Duke get 2-seed in East in SI projection

In a world without a COVID-19 pandemic, the NCAA Tournament would have started on Thursday. While basketball season ended a week earlier, we can still speculate about what might have been.

SI's bracketologists, Jim Root and Ky McKeon of Three Man Weave, projected what the field would have looked like on Selection Sunday, but with a few important caveats. Any conference that played its tournament championship game to award an NCAA automatic bid would have that autobid stand (for example, Boston University keeps the Patriot League's spot in the field of 68). For the rest of the conferences, the autobid was rewarded to the regular-season champ (in the event of a tie, it went to the No. 1 seed).

In addition, any conference tournaments that started and didn't finish (like the ACC, Big East, Big Ten and Pac-12, which played first- and/or second-round games), had those results thrown out. Otherwise, it would create too much unevenness amongst bubble teams, some of whom got an extra game and some of whom didn't.

With these parameters in mind, here is the final bracket projection by Three Man Weave.

Duke is a 2-seed in the East and assigned to Greensboro. The Blue Devils open with Northern Kentucky. The winner of that game faces the winner of 7-seed Houston against 10-seed Indiana.

If Duke advanced, it would likely face the winner of 3-seed Michigan State and 6-seed Virginia in the Sweet 16. Then 1-seed Dayton, 4-seed Oregon or 5-seed Ohio State await at the top of the bracket.

Stephen F. Austin, who upset Duke in Cameron earlier in the year, was also assigned to the East region.

Around the ACC, Florida State received a 2-seed in the South. NC State got an 11-seed and a trip to Dayton for the first four, in the Midwest. Louisville is a 4-seed in the West.

Other teams of interest include 10-seed in the South Marquette, coached by Steve Wojciechowski.

Duke’s neighbor in Durham, NC Central, received a 16-seed in the South and another trip to Dayton’s first four. (Coach K discusses NC Central’s program in the video at top.)

Here's Duke's trip to the Final Four

East Region

Cleveland:

(1) Dayton vs. (16) Siena
(8) Providence vs. (9) Oklahoma

Spokane:

(5) Ohio State vs. (12) Stephen F. Austin
(4) Oregon vs. (13) New Mexico State

Cleveland:

(6) Virginia vs. (11) East Tennessee State
(3) Michigan State vs. (14) UC Irvine

Greensboro:

(7) Houston vs. (10) Indiana
(2) Duke vs. (15) Northern Kentucky