A Selection Sunday guide for everyone else
Selection Sunday For All
Think of this as a sort of guide to Selection Sunday of what could happen and how you can mark things off as they happen. I don’t have any further of an intro because what lies below is pretty self-explanatory.
Where teams will play, Round of 64/32 edition
This isn’t sexy stuff, but it helps you understand why teams will be seeded on certain seed lines and how the seeding order (of sorts) will go. And also where you’ll see First Four teams head.
I’ve filled these sites out only if I feel >90% confident a team is going to end up there.
THURSDAY/SATURDAY
Birmingham: 1 seeds Houston and Alabama are locks to end up here. This is Houston’s closest site by nearly 300 miles, and it’s obviously in Alabama’s backyard. I’d anticipate that a First Four 16 seed ends up with one of them.
Des Moines: 1 seed Kansas and (void). Marquette could very well end up here, as could Kansas State or Xavier, but I don’t feel 100% confident in any of them.
Orlando: Filler teams, most likely two 4 seeds. Whoever’s left at the tail end of the top 16 seeds will end up here, as there’s no obvious Florida/Georgia/South Carolina teams to send there.
Sacramento: 1/2 seed UCLA will end up here, and I would bet that 2 seed Arizona ends up there with them, but don’t discount Gonzaga.
FRIDAY/SUNDAY
Albany: 3/4 seed UConn is a lock. The other team to join them will either be 4 seed Virginia or a leftover.
Columbus: 1/2 seed Purdue will be here. I think that Purdue ends up a 1 seed for a few reasons, but a key one few mention is that, because the First Four Wednesday winner is required to play on Friday, a 1 seed needs to play on Friday. It will either be Purdue or Texas or they’re gonna have to send UCLA to Denver. Oh, and the other team here is either Marquette or Xavier. I’ll guess Xavier with Marquette going to Iowa.
Denver: 1/2 seed Texas and 2 seed Baylor are likely to show up here. It doesn’t make a ton of sense sending a pair of Texas teams to Colorado, but such are how the sites fell this year. Texas is starting to get mocked for a 1 seed by some. The committee desires to do as little work as humanly possible so I doubt that’s the case, but if so, it bails them out of putting Purdue as a 1.
Greensboro: Against my better judgment I do think it’s very likely 3/4 seed Tennessee ends up here. There’s a chance Tennessee could fall to Orlando but it doesn’t seem that high. I think if Duke jumps to a 4 seed they get this, but in the event they do not, probably Virginia?
Where teams will play, Sweet 16/Elite 8 edition
THURSDAY, MARCH 23
Las Vegas (West): My honest best guess here is that it’s Houston’s region. It’s a little absurd because they’re closer to both the South and Midwest locales, but given Houston’s chance to play in the Final Four in their hometown, the committee probably won’t feel overly willing to give them another break.
New York (East): This is going to be the fourth 1 seed. Right now it would be Purdue; if UCLA somehow gets the final 1 seed I assume they’d want the West and Houston would get this instead. But to keep it clean let’s assume it’s Purdue.
FRIDAY, MARCH 24
Kansas City (Midwest): Have you heard of Kansas. It’s a basketball team. (Could also be Houston!)
Louisville (South): Almost certainly Alabama’s domain.
Where teams will be seeded
Think of this like a seeding game. There’s X teams for X spots, and once said spots are filled, you can move onto the next seed line. I don’t think people are interested in how many people can be on the 7-line, so we’ll make this a checklist of sorts for the following:
1 seeds
The Bubble
And yes, for Twitter purposes, we’ll turn this into a real checklist.
Bracket quirks worth noting
None of the top four teams in a conference cannot be seeded in the same region if on the top-4 seed lines. The only two conferences where this is likely to be an issue is the Big 12 and the Big East. None of Kansas (1 seed), Texas (2), Baylor (2), or Kansas State (3) can be placed in the same region, which could prove difficult at a certain point. Likewise, none of Marquette (2/3), Xavier (4), Creighton (5/6), or UConn (3/4) can be, though Creighton wouldn’t count here. Tennessee and Alabama also cannot be in the same region.
The committee does try to avoid first-round rematches. They also try to avoid Round of 32 rematches, though some are inevitable. For example, the committee probably would work to avoid a Purdue/West Virginia Round of 32 rematch, as they would try to avoid a re-run of Gonzaga/Kentucky.
Also they try and avoid rematches from the 2022 Tournament in the first round. Probably not that frequent, but for example, you probably won’t see Boise State play Memphis or USC play Miami.
Some questions/things to watch for
How important is NET to the bubble? If you were to put together a First Four of the highest-rated NET teams available, you’d have a grouping of Nevada/North Texas/Rutgers/NC State. And yet: only two of those teams are actually projected in the field, with UNT being a fringe contender at best and Rutgers (the third) being squarely on the cutline. For instance, a team like Arizona State’s presence in the field isn’t based on metrics at all. Same with a potential Vanderbilt appearance.
What type of respect do the non-Big Six teams get? Obviously, Houston will be a 1 seed, and Gonzaga is likely to be a 3. Beyond that, a lot is questionable. Where will they slot Saint Mary’s, who’s a 3-seed by metrics but a 6-seed by resume? What about Florida Atlantic, who has a similar resume to teams like 2019 Buffalo, who was a 6 seed? Will Utah State (#20 NET, #22 Wins Above Bubble) be in the First Four or comfortably in the field? Will the ACC get four teams in the field? Five? Six? Can the Mountain West get a fourth in with Nevada? Lastly, does the committee see teams like North Texas (#38 NET, #45 WAB) as a serious option?
Where does Tennessee get seeded? This is kind of a stupid question, but hear me out: this is a team who’s #4 in NET, top-6 in every metric site, but offers a #25 WAB and Torvik’s 19th-ranked resume. Where they’re placed could tell you a lot about what the committee values these days.
Does the committee place any of the one-bid league winners as an 11 seed? This doesn’t happen super often, but it generally comes about if/when they’re displeased with the bubble options and shove a First Four grouping down to the 12 line. I can’t say that I see it happening, but it would be pretty funny. (Charleston feels like the top option for a seed jump.)
How does the Big 12 get seeded? I think Kansas, Texas, and Baylor are all pretty obvious top-2 seeds, though Baylor’s case is potentially shaky. Everything after that is quite interesting. Torvik’s similar resumes tool would place Kansas State as a 4 and Iowa State as a 7 (!), but they’re looking like 3 and 5 seeds. Iowa State in particular really interests me, as no team with 12+ losses has ever been seeded lower than a 6.
How important is regionality? There’s some obvious stuff here, like Kansas wanting the Kansas City region or Alabama wanting Louisville. But what respect will be paid to 2, 3, and 4 seeds? There’s a real scenario where 4-seed UConn is placed in the East region (NYC) and draws 1-seed Purdue where Purdue’s basically playing a road game. Does the committee want that?
How important is, or are, conference tournaments? If they’re of real importance, Marquette will be a 2 seed and Duke a 4.
If you’ve got any other questions about any team at all, fire away in the comments or via email; I will be Very Online today.