The NCAA selection committee unveiled the top 16 seeds on Saturday, three weeks and a day before the official bracket is announced on Selection Sunday. Iowa State’s placement over Houston and Connecticut was a bit of a surprise and the choice was accompanied by “a lot more debate,” committee chairman and Sun Belt commissioner Keith Gill said on the CBS broadcast.
| Midwest | East | West | South | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Michigan (1) | Duke (2) | Arizona (3) | State of Iowa (4) |
2 | Houston (6) | Illinois (7) | Purdue (8) | UConn (5) |
3 | Florida (9) | Kansas (10) | Gonzaga (12) | Nebraska (11) |
4 | Virginia (16) | Vanderbilt (15) | State of Michigan (14) | Texas Technology (13) |
Gill said UConn was in the top tier as of Wednesday, but the Huskies’ home loss to Creighton that night moved them to the second tier. UConn was the second No. 2 seed and was joined in order by Houston, Illinois and Purdue.
The No. 3 seeds, in order, are Florida, Kansas, Nebraska and Gonzaga. The No. 4 seeds, in order, are Texas Tech, Michigan State, Vanderbilt and Virginia. Gill said Alabama and Arkansas were the next closest teams to the top 16. News this week of Texas Tech star JT Toppin’s season-ending knee injury caused the Red Raiders to drop one line, Gill said.
Broken down by region, Michigan is joined in the Midwest region by Houston, Florida and Virginia. It’s Duke in the East, joined by Illinois, Kansas and Vanderbilt. It’s Arizona in the West, along with Purdue, Gonzaga and Michigan State. And it’s Iowa State in the south, along with UConn, Nebraska and Texas Tech.
These regions illustrate the difficulty of keeping conference rivals away from each other, with two leagues as dominant as the Big Ten and Big 12 this season. These two leagues produced eight of the top 10 seeds and 12 of the top 16. Therefore, Iowa State and Texas Tech are in line to play in the Sweet 16 in this category.
Gill said Michigan and Michigan State were also initially together in the Midwest, which would have meant a possible third meeting in the Sweet 16 in Chicago. But to balance the overall seed values – the sum of the top four seeds in each region cannot be more than a difference of six from any other region – Michigan State was sent to the West and Virginia to the Midwest.
The committee’s bracket was a bit different than the bracket that emerged from a mock media selection in Indianapolis this week The Athletics‘s CJ Moore among the participants. The media had Houston as the fourth No. 1 seed, Alabama and Arkansas both as the No. 4 seed, and Texas Tech and Vanderbilt out of the top 16.
The annual Feb. 10 unveiling served almost as a perfect preview of perhaps the best hoops day of the entire season — top-line Houston would have faced off all four projected No. 1 seeds later Saturday. The top two seeds Michigen and Duke would meet in Washington, while Arizona would play in Houston.
#NCAA #tournament #selection #committee #unveils #current #top #mens #seeds #Michigan #Virginia