It’s never too early to start looking at brackets.

With Selection Sunday on March 17, each game has the potential to change the calculus for three teams on the Front Range with NCAA Tournament expectations and potential.

Here’s where each stands now:

Colorado women

Despite dropping their first home game of the season in a weekend split against then-No. 5 UCLA and then-No. 6 USC, beating the latter, JR Payne’s Buffaloes remain a No. 1 seed in ESPN’s updated projections.

Because of UCLA’s loss at Utah Monday, CU is in first place in the Pac-12 as one of two teams with 6-1 conference records. The other is Stanford, which lost to the Buffs in Boulder. They don’t play again in the regular season.

Things are about to get trickier for the Buffs, who hit the road for four straight games beginning this week against the two Oregon schools. If they’re able to navigate this road trip and the two home games that follow with a 5-1 record heading into the toughest three-game stretch of the season — at Utah, at USC and UCLA — then there’s a good chance CU will be playing for No. 1 seed in a month’s time.

It would be the second No. 1 seed in program history. The first was in 1995 when current assistant coach Shelley Sheetz led the Buffs to the Elite Eight.

In the latest projected bracket, CU would be in the same region as 2-seed N.C. State, the only team to beat the Buffs in the nonconference — 78-60 in November in the Virgin Islands.

Three of the current No. 1 seeds are from the Pac-12 as Stanford and UCLA join CU on the top line. USC and Utah are projected as No. 3 seeds.

Colorado men

Coming off a 3-0 homestand, Tad Boyle’s team is squarely back on the bubble.

The Buffs weren’t in a good spot in the bracketology world earlier this month.

CU went 0-3 on their first road trip, getting blown out by Arizona in a game that featured neither Tristan da Silva or Cody Williams. They also blew a 20-point lead against a bad Cal team with da Silva and Williams in the lineup.

The good news for the Buffs if they’ve recovered from that awful road trip and are back in the “first four out” group of ESPN’s latest bracket projections.

With Williams, the reigning Pac-12 freshman of the week, starting to play his best basketball and looking like a future top-five NBA draft pick, there are plenty of opportunities for wins that would get CU onto the other side of the bubble.

It starts this week against the two Washington schools, historically a difficult road trip for Boyle’s teams. But they beat both the Huskies and Cougars without da Silva and Williams.

It would be a shame for a team this talented to miss the dance, but they must string together some road wins given the lack of respect the conference has nationally with just three teams projected to make the tournament right now.

Colorado State men

At this point, it feels as though Niko Medved’s Rams are playing for seeding.

After their nonconference success and a solid start to Mountain West play, CSU feels like a lock to make the big dance for the fifth time this century, barring a dramatic collapse in the final six weeks.

The Rams are back in the Associated Press Top 25 after beating Air Force and UNLV at home. They’re currently projected as the No. 6 seed in the South Region with a first-round matchup against the winner of Kansas State and Ole Miss.

That would match the 2022 squad for the highest seed in program history.

Much like their rivals in Boulder, the Rams could use some road conference wins.

After dropping games against Utah State (a projected 7 seed) and Boise State (a projected 9 seed) in tough environments, CSU faces a Nevada team on the bubble Wednesday in Reno. After that, it’s a rivalry game against Wyoming in Laramie before a big showdown against San Diego State Tuesday in Fort Collins.

A big week could see Medved and his team jump back into the top 15 of the rankings and a top-four projected seed.