Our SBNation Bracketology expert Chris Dobbertean has put out his latest analysis of the NCAA tournament bracket and the news is mixed for the locals. For Villanova, who has lost 9 of their final 14 games, the news is not good. Dobbertean has them falling from a #6 to a #8 seed. He's projecting a first round matchup with George Mason out of the CAA. Not a super tough first round matchup, but it could mean a date with #1 overall Ohio State in the second round. While that's certainly not the kind of 2nd round matchup Wildcat fans were expecting back in January, it's also not the cupcake Ohio State fans are probably expecting as a second round opponent right now..
For Temple, the news is pretty good. As a point of Philly pride, Dobbertean has them seeded above Villanova at #7, although that is a drop from the #6 seed he had them at last week. This seed could be very fluid though and winning the Atlantic 10 tournament could likely boost the Owls up as high as a #5 seed, which is where A-10 regular season champs Xavier currently sit. He's projecting a first round matchup with Gonzaga.
As for Penn State, their tournament dreams looked dashed last week, but a win over Minnesota seems to have upgraded them from "dashed" to "flickering." According to Dobbertean, there's some life as he now has the Nittany Lions as the #8 team on his "first eight out." Penn State needs a strong showing in the Big 10 tournament, as well as the conference tournaments to play out exactly the way they should. Should a team like Duquesne win the Atlantic 10 tournament, that could push out a team like Penn State because the A-10 already has three likely NCAA tournament teams in Xavier, Temple & Richmond. They need the teams already heading to the dance to be the ones grabbing their conference tournaments' automatic bids.
Either way though, flickering dreams are better than dashed ones.