Men’s NCAA Tournament: Auburn, Duke, Houston and Florida are No 1 seeds
Auburn are the top overall seed in the men’s NCAA Tournament, with Duke, Houston and Florida joining the Tigers on the No 1 line in the March Madness brackets released on Sunday.
The NCAA selection committee favored the regular-season champs of the record-setting Southeastern Conference despite three losses in their last four games, along with a loss to Duke back in December in the season’s lone meeting between the teams.
The Tigers (28-5) and Gators were two of the 14 SEC teams to make the field, which will be the most for a conference in the history of the tournament. In something of a surprise, both North Carolina and Texas slid in off the bubble.
The 68-team bracket starts whittling down on Tuesday with preliminary games, and the main draw kicks off on Thursday and Friday, with 32 games at eight sites around the country.
The selection show began with a heartfelt tribute to the late Greg Gumbel, the CBS stalwart who oversaw the bracket unveiling for decades.
North Carolina looked all but out, a victim of a 1-12 record against so-called Quad 1 opponents and part of a conference (ACC) teetering on the verge of a historically bad season. But the Tar Heels made it, thanks maybe to a strong nonconference slate, while Texas were also in – their seven wins against Quad 1 teams outweighing their overall 15 losses.
The SEC’s 14 teams were followed by the Big Ten with eight and Big 12 with seven. The ACC, meanwhile, ended up with four teams, barely avoiding its worst showing since 2000, back when the conference was half the size it is now.
Even in a down cycle, the ACC has Duke, and Duke have arguably the best player in the country in freshman Cooper Flagg, a 19-point, 7.5-rebound-a-game freshman whose ankle injury, the school says, will not keep him out of March Madness.
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