Welcome to bracket watch. I’m hoping to do this most Fridays covering Wisconsin and Marquette. We will be using ESPN’s Joe Lunardi’s bracket along with CBS’s Jerry Palm to do this along with looking at Bracket Matrix. For those unfamiliar with Bracket Matrix, they take the cumulative bracket seed of all the people putting out brackets. We will talk about the hypothetical matchups plus the path to the Sweet 16 or even further. If Wisconsin-Green Bay or Wisconsin-Milwaukee find their way into the conversation, we will talk about it more. But until then, it is two teams that matter in the State of Wisconsin.

Marquette Golden Eagles
Marquette made a significant move in Lunardi’s bracket from Tuesday. With the win against St. John’s combined with their win against Georgetown, they’re checking in at the six seed. It seems like a market correction by Joey Brackets because Palm had Marquette as a seven seed earlier this week. Palm also bumped Marquette to the six-line as well. The bracket matrix is not as high on Marquette with them checking in at an eight seed although they’re the highest eight seed.

Marquette opponents are different per Lunardi and Palm. They would either face the winner of Oklahoma/Liberty in Lunardi’s bracket or NC State in Palm’s bracket. The location for the game would be Greensboro or Cleveland. Both have Marquette in the Indianapolis region would be a huge bonus in terms of fan support should Marquette make it to the Sweet 16. None of these teams pose a true worry for Marquette. If they’d advance, the three-line features Michigan State or a rematch with Maryland. My guess is the Golden Eagles would like to avoid the Terrapins again.

Wisconsin Badgers
This is where we see some true differences of opinion. Wisconsin is a six seed for Lunardi playing in the Los Angeles region against East Tennessee State. Where Palm puts the Badgers to nine-line and playing Houston in the East region. The locations for the game would be Badgers-friendly being in St. Louis or Omaha. Bracket Matrix tends to agree with the lower seed, but the Badgers are currently the lowest sixth seed.

Those are beautiful matchups for Wisconsin though. East Tennessee St. will get a lot of Cinderella hype but they play at a pace that at the Badgers’ level. As for Houston, they’re about as undisciplined of a team I’ve watched this season. The second round opponents in either bracket are not easy at all with Louisville or Kansas.

These will likely change in the coming days and next week. Marquette takes on Butler tonight at Hinkle Fieldhouse, and Wisconsin heads to Mackey Arena for another team in a must-win spot. We’ll see what next week’s edition brings.

Charlie.