Bracket Watch: First look at the field of 68 as conference play begins

Villanova, Kansas, UCLA and Baylor secure the No. 1 overall seeds in our first look at the full field for the 2017 NCAA tournament.

Author:: Michael Beller
Publish date:: Dec 28, 2016

The holidays are all but behind us, the nonconference tournaments have been completed, and conference play is underway. There’s no better time to debut the SI.com Bracket Watch for the 2017 NCAA tournament.

We’re just getting our feet wet this week. Beginning the Week of January 9, we will have an updated bracket every Monday and a fresh look at the bubble with our Bubble Watch every Tuesday. The frequency of both of those will increase at the start of Championship Week, with a new survey of the landscape every day leading up to Selection Sunday.

For now, however, please satiate your March Madness cravings with our first field of 68. This is going to change a lot between now and Sunday, March 12, but this is how the picture looks heading into the New Year.

Note: The Bracket Watch does not necessarily reflect how SI would pick and seed the field. Rather, it strives to predict how the committee would do so at the specific point in time when each Bracket Watch is published.