Editor's note: Teams preceded by their conference name are expected to win their league's automatic bid.

March 22/Knoxville, Tenn.
(1) Tennessee vs. (16) ATLANTIC SUN/Central Florida
(8) Xavier vs. (9) Illinois
March 22/Albuquerque, N.M.
(5) Rutgers vs. (12) New Mexico
(4) Texas vs. (13) MAC/Toledo
March 23/University Park, Pa.
(3) Penn State vs. (14) PATRIOT/Holy Cross
(6) Arkansas vs. (11) Saint Joseph's
March 22/Boulder, Colo.
(7) Colorado vs. (10) BYU
(2) North Carolina vs. (15) CAA/Delaware

TEAM	THUMBS UP	THUMBS DOWN
1. Tennessee	No. 1 RPI, No. 1 SOS	Three losses (Duke, UConn, Texas)
2. North Carolina	Eight-game win streak	No. 33 SOS
3. Penn State	10 RPI Top 50 wins	One sub-100 RPI loss
4. Texas	10-1 conference record	No. 43 SOS
5. Rutgers	No. 18 in SOS	1-4 vs. RPI Top 25
6. Arkansas	7-4 on road/neutral sites	One sub-100 RPI loss
7. Colorado	8-2 on road/neutral sites	No. 77 in SOS
8. Xavier	Nine RPI Top 100 wins	0-1 vs. RPI Top 25
9. Illinois	No. 2 in SOS	6-6 league record
10. BYU	Beat then-No. 12 Texas	5-7 on road/neutral sites
11. Saint Joseph's	No. 28 in SOS	0-4 vs. RPI Top 25
12. New Mexico	No. 42 RPI	2-7 vs. RPI Top 100
Note: SOS refers to strength of schedule; CollegeRPI.com used as reference; teams expected to be invited solely by virtue of their conference's automatic bid are not included in this analysis.

Charlie Creme was a writer and editor at Blue Ribbon College Basketball Yearbook for 11 years. Click here to send him a question about his bracket projections.