Bracketology: Missouri slides in; Michigan moves up

Michigan's move up, BYU's exit and Missouri's entrance are the three biggest moves since Tuesday's projection. Elsewhere, the moves are more subtle, though some those indicate future danger for teams near the cut line --Minnesota and Stanford, to be specific.

I'll have some Friday observations after the full projection and rundown.

New teams are indicated by an asterisk (*), while teams shifted for bracketing purposes are marked with a caret (^).

Also considered: Mississippi, Florida State, Harvard, Clemson, Arkansas, Louisiana Tech, Indiana, Maryland

Here are Friday's key bracket notes, in convenient bullet form.

• Syracuse (East), Arizona (West), Florida (South) and Wichita State (Midwest) remain as No. 1 seeds for yet another bracket.
• San Diego State drops down to the three line after Tuesday night loss at Wyoming -- a defeat that also knocked the Aztecs from the ranks of the conference unbeatens.
• Kentucky is a new three seed as well, as a replacement for new No. 4 Creighton. Wisconsin, which has won three in a row, also returns to the Top 16, replacing Virginia, despite a head-to-head loss. The Badgers' computer numbers are better and they have far more quality wins.
• Minnesota, Wisconsin's Thursday night victim, is now just six places above the cut line. The Golden Gophers should be OK for another week, as winnable games at Northwestern and against Illinois are on tap over the next six days. After that, things will get serious, as Minnesota must visit both Ohio State and Michigan and host Iowa.
• Out West, Stanford hurt itself a bit with a four-point loss at Washington on Wednesday night. The Cardinal cannot afford a repeat in Pullman on Saturday. Otherwise, next week's visit from surging UCLA and the following week's Tempe-Tucson road swing become must-wins.
• BYU did itself a tremendous amount of damage by falling at Pacific, the WCC's seventh-place team. Even though the Tigers are just inside the Top 100 as of this morning, that's the fourth (or fifth, depending on how you want to classify archrival Utah) bad loss the Cougars have on their selection sheet. I'm not sure early wins at Stanford and against Texas (in Kansas City) can outweigh that fact, even if the Selection Committee endlessly harps on non-conference scheduling.
• The Cougars' replacement is Missouri, which knocked off Arkansas on Thursday night. Home wins over UCLA and West Virginia and a road victory over an N.C. State team that's on the wrong side of the bubble are the best items on the Tigers' sheet right now. That's why they can't afford a home loss to Tennessee, another SEC team that's in the hunt, on Saturday.
• Finally, this bracket contains two matchups that would get people talking if the Committee created them in the actual bracket. Both are in the bottom half of the Midwest Region, where a St. John's win over West Virginia in the First Four would lead to Steve Lavin's squad taking on his former employer, UCLA, in the Round of 64. In the St. Louis pod just below it, the 7/10 game is an original Big East reunion between Connecticut and Georgetown.

I'll have a full bracketology update on Tuesday, while next Friday in this space, I'll talk a lot more about who is a lock with less than a month to go. In the meantime, head over to Blogging the Bracket for my daily TV previews and morning recaps, and follow me during each night's action on Twitter @ChrisDobbertean.

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