BRACKETWATCH: GRADUATION DAY

It's ¡Domingo Selección! Here's where Iowa will end up, straight from the mouths of the nation's preeminent bracketologists.  Note: These brackets have not been approved by the FDA, and are provided on a trial basis only.

CURRENT STATUS: STEADILY UNSTEADY

Joe Lunardi, ESPN: 7 seed, Portland vs. BYU

Jerry Palm, CBS: 7 seed, Charlotte vs. LSU

Chris Dobbertean, SB Nation: 8 seed, Charlotte vs. St. John's

Stewart Mandel, Fox Sports: 7 seed, Charlotte vs. LSU

Bracket Matrix: Second-ranked 8 seed

A couple of hours after yesterday's Bracketwatch went live, Lunardi dropped Iowa to an 8 seed, in line with almost everyone else.  At that point, it looked like there wasn't much drama left: Iowa was surely headed for the dreaded 8/9 first round game in one way or another.

Something strange happened overnight, though.  San Diego State lost to Wyoming.  Davidson fell to VCU in the A-10 semifinals.  Xavier was thoroughly stomped by Villanova in the Big East championship game.  Oregon fell in the Pac-12 title game.  And the margin between the 6 and 10 seeds is so small that those losses moved Iowa back up.  Lunardi had the Hawkeyes back on the 7 line this morning, ahead of SDSU, OSU and Cincinnati.  Jerry Palm, who had been the first to move Iowa to a 6 seed earlier this week and had dropped them to an 8 in just two days, bumped them back up as well.  Mandel held steady, and only the damnable Dobbertean still has Iowa on the 8 line as of Selection Sunday morning.

There's one huge problem, though: All of the major bracket guys have Iowa ahead of both VCU and Dayton, but not by much.  If Lunardi is simply S-curving the bracket after the first four seeds, he has Iowa as the lowest 7 seed (which makes sense, given that he'd moved them to an 8 just hours before).  He also has VCU among the higher 8 seeds and Dayton at a 9 seed.  Palm has both VCU and Dayton on the 8 line.  And VCU plays Dayton Sunday for the Atlantic-10 title, which gives either the chance to move ahead of Iowa (it's a close game in the second half at the time of writing).  I'd say that VCU is the more likely leapfrog candidate -- Dayton's relatively new to the bubble and seems to be riding a wave of goodwill as much as anything -- but Iowa is still susceptible to a late move down.

There's not much to watch Sunday, at least for seeding purposes.  The Atlantic-10 game might screw Iowa either way, the SEC and Big Ten title teams are already well ahead of Iowa, and the Hawkeyes are far enough from the bubble to not care about whether UConn sneaks into the field (that is, until the defending national champions end up on the 10 line opposite Iowa).