Spencer Parlier | NCAA.com | September 30, 2020

Andy Katz makes his first 2021 NCAA bracket for March Madness

Andy Katz makes his first 2021 NCAA bracket prediction for March Madness

College hoops is almost back and it's time for our first look ahead to what the 2021 NCAA tournament field might look like. The season begins Nov. 25 and NCAA.com basketball expert Andy Katz has released his first projected bracket for 2021 March Madness.

Andy Katz preseason bracketology for the 2021 NCAA tournament

Here are his top 10 seeds, or first ten in, which be breaks down on this week's March Madness 365 podcast:

Gonzaga
Baylor
Villanova
Illinois
Iowa
Wisconsin
Virginia
Kansas
Kentucky
Tennessee

As we all know, there aren’t just 10 teams in the NCAA tournament, so let’s break down the rest of Katz’s preseason March Madness field:

Andy Katz's first preseason 2021 NCAA tournament bracket
Seed	West	Midwest	South	East
1	Gonzaga	Illinois	Baylor	Villanova
16	NC Central/E. Washington	Praire View A&M/St. Francis Pa.	Colgate	Vermont

8	Seton Hall	Providence	Florida	Purdue
9	LSU	Northern Iowa	UConn	Saint Louis

5	Indiana	UCLA	Michigan	Texas
12	Louisville/SDSU	St. John's/Cincinnati	Iona	Yale

4	Arizona State	Texas Tech	Creighton	Rutgers
13	New Mexico State	Stephen F. Austin	Liberty	ETSU

6	Stanford	Houston	Florida State	West Virginia
11	BYU	Georgia Tech	Belmont	Colorado

3	Michigan State	Tennessee	Kentucky	Duke
14	Hofstra	Akron	North Texas	Little Rock

7	North Carolina	Richmond	Oregon	Alabama
10	Boise State	Ohio State	Oklahoma	Memphis

2	Kansas	Virginia	Wisconsin	Iowa
15	UC Irvine	Winthrop	NDSU	Wright State

Now, let's take a closer look at some of the highlights.

Gonzaga, Baylor, Villanova and Illinois are Katz's No. 1 seeds

Those are Katz's picks, right now, for the top seeds. Three of them are easy picks as the No. 1 team headed into this season, according to ESPN bracketologist Joe Lunardi.

“This is the year where I think you can vote any of three teams as the preseason No. 1 — Baylor, Villanova, Gonzaga, in whatever order you want,” Lunardi told Katz on this week’s podcast.

For the fourth No. 1 spot, Katz went with the Fighting Illini. Katz has the Illini automatically qualifying by winning the Big Ten tournament.

Illinois gets the nod over projected No. 2 seeds Iowa, a team led by preseason national Player of the Year favorite Luka Garza, and Kansas, a team that returns last season’s Defensive Player of the Year Marcus Garret.

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All four No. 1 seeds bring back a solid core of players.

Gonzaga is led by the returning Corey Kispert. The Zags will also bring in highly-touted freshman Jalen Suggs. Baylor returns potential Big 12 Player of the Year Jared Butler. Villanova will be led by veteran point guard Collin Gillespie as well as return most of its core from last season. And the Illini will return stars Ayo Dosunmu and Kofi Cockburn — two of the main reasons Katz is so high on Illinois.

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Along with Iowa and Kansas, Wisconsin and Virginia, Katz’s favorite to win the ACC, also join the No. 2 line.

Although regular-season scheduling is still to be determined, especially non-conference games, there is a chance we will see conference foes like Iowa, Illinois and Wisconsin, as well as Baylor and Kansas face each other at least once this year.

Who's on Katz's bubble, right now

Katz went beyond the field of 68 to make some predictions on the bubble for the upcoming season.

First Four out:

Dayton
Clemson
NC State
Utah

Next four out:

Auburn
Arizona
Arkansas

SMU

Andy Katz's field of 68

Here is Katz’s full seed list in order:

RANK	TEAM	SEED
1	Gonzaga	1
2	Baylor	1
3	Villanova	1
4	Illinois	1
5	Iowa	2
6	Wisconsin	2
7	Virginia	2
8	Kansas	2
9	Kentucky	3
10	Tennessee	3
11	Duke	3
12	Michigan State	3
13	Rutgers	4
14	Arizona State	4
15	Texas Tech	4
16	Creighton	4
17	Michigan	5
18	Indiana	5
19	UCLA	5
20	Texas	5
21	Florida State	6
22	Houston	6
23	West Virginia	6
24	Stanford	6
25	Richmond	7
26	North Carolina	7
27	Oregon	7
28	Alabama	7
29	Providence	8
30	Florida	8
31	Seton Hall	8
32	Purdue	8
33	UConn	9
34	Northern Iowa	9
35	LSU	9
36	Saint Louis	9
37	Oklahoma	10
38	BYU	10
39	Ohio State	10
40	Boise State	10
41	Memphis	11
42	Georgia Tech	11
43	Colorado	11
44	Belmont	11
45	Louisville	12
46	San Diego State	12
47	St. John's	12
48	Cincinnati	12
49	Yale	12
50	Iona	12
51	New Mexico State	13
52	Liberty	13
53	Stephen F. Austin	13
54	East Tennessee State	13
55	Akron	14
56	Hofstra	14
57	Little Rock	14
58	North Texas	14
59	UC Irvine	15
60	Winthrop	15
61	North Dakota State	15
62	Wright State	15
63	Vermont	16
64	Colgate	16
65	North Carolina Central	16
66	Eastern Washington	16
67	Prairie View A&M	16
68	St. Francis, Pa	16