A hot start for the University of Toledo men’s basketball team has drawn the attention of those who try to predict the makeup of the NCAA tournament field.

The Rockets, 9-3 overall and 4-0 in the Mid-American Conference following an 84-82 victory Tuesday at Kent State, were the pick for the conference’s automatic berth on bracketmatrix.com, a site that compiles bracketology projection.

The bracketmatrix site has UT installed as a No. 13 seed, with the Rockets appearing in 28 out of the 36 brackets tracked. Winthrop (Big South projected automatic), Georgia State (Sun Belt projected automatic), and Wright State (Horizon League projected automatic) are the other No. 13 seeds.

The Rockets’ highest seeding among the bracket projections tracked is 12. ESPN’s Joe Lunardi has UT as a No. 13 seed playing West Virginia in the first round, while Andy Katz of ncaa.com has the Rockets as a No. 13 seed playing Minnesota in the first round.

The Rockets were MAC’s second-highest team in the first NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) rankings released Monday, trailing Akron.

UT hosts Ohio at 6:30 p.m. Friday in a game televised by CBS Sports Network.

Akron (three brackets), Buffalo (two), Ohio (two), and Bowling Green (one) appear in individual rankings compiled by bracketmatrix.

Wisconsin, the projected automatic berth from the Big Ten, is a No. 2 seed. Iowa and Illinois are No. 3 seeds, Michigan and Rutgers are No. 4 seeds, Ohio State is a No. 5 seed, Michigan State and Minnesota are No. 7 seeds, Northwestern and Indiana are No. 9 seeds, and Purdue is a No. 10 seed.

Gonzaga, Baylor, Villanova, and Kansas are the projected No. 1 seeds.

First Published January 6, 2021, 3:39 p.m.