With Sunday’s long-awaited NCAA tournament the Field of 68 announcement, it’s time to take a look at what the selection committee set up for us fans for the next three weeks.
Louisville—not Indiana, which had been by consensus the best team for much of the season—was the highest of the four No. 1 seeds, with the Hoosiers somewhat early semifinal exit from the Big Ten tournament probably being the reason why. Meanwhile Louisville won the Big East tournament Saturday and has won 13 of its last 14 games.
Joining those two as top seeds are Kansas, which won the Big 12 regular and tournament titles, along with 31-2 Gonzaga.
Among the best opening round matchups looks to be the Iowa State/Notre Dame tilt in the West region as well as the North Carolina/Villanova game in the South—at least by reputation.
The Cyclones are a tremendous perimeter-shooting team that has been snake-bitten with some very close losses (see both regular season games versus Kansas that went to overtime), while Notre Dame has been a solid team all yearlong.
Meanwhile, the Tar Heels have been a different team since Roy Williams went to a four-guard lineup in early February. Villanova though has beaten the likes of Syracuse, Louisville, and Georgetown this year in an up-and-down season.
The Round of 32 is where things could potentially get very interesting. Should Kansas and North Carolina both win their openers, the two would meet again for the second straight season in the tournament. While Kansas Achilles’s in the tournament under Bill Self has been lesser-known mid-majors, the Tar Heels would certainly have revenge on their minds after KU dismissed them in last year’s regional final.
Among some other notable possible weekend matchups would be second-seeded Duke taking on Creighton and Doug McDermott in the Midwest region. While the 27–5 Blue Devils are 18–1 with Ryan Kelly (who was out for 13 games) in the lineup, that one loss was Friday—it sometimes takes time to adjust to a player who just returned to the lineup.
McDermott averaged 23.1 points per game this season, but would need to make a great showing in the tournament to get some NBA buzz going.
The East region, with Miami, Butler, Indiana, and Syracuse may be the toughest one to predict. Butler made it to the title game in both 2010 and 2011, but has had some puzzling losses this season to Charlotte, a 32-point loss to VCU, and three losses to Saint Louis—yet they beat top seeds Indiana and Gonzaga.
Second-seeded Miami lost to Indiana State and Florida Gulf Coast and then somehow rocked Duke and North Carolina en route to winning the ACC regular season and tournament titles—but no one on its team has even played in an NCAA tournament game.
Syracuse came tumbling into the Big East tournament as losers of four of five but reeled off three straight wins to restore its reputation, before Louisville came storming back against it in the Big East finals.
The top seed of the East region, Indiana, has been the favorite for much of the season but faltered to a 3–3 record over its last six games. Meanwhile, no one knows what to make of this team’s tournament hopes given its little postseason experience—last year was the first time since 2008 that the program had been invited to the big dance.
Of course, if it’s one thing that past NCAA tournament history has taught us, it’s that there is no formula to predicting these brackets—hence “March Madness.”
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