Winners and losers from NCAA men's tournament bracket include North Carolina, Illinois
Tickets have been punched and bubbles burst. Best of luck putting that bracket together, 'cause you're going to need it.
An unpredictable finish to the regular season has yielded an unpredictable NCAA men's tournament field, where the few sure things – defending national champion Connecticut, to name one – are outnumbered by the question marks in every region.
For one, can two-time defending Big Ten champion and Midwest Region No. 1 Purdue follow in 2019 Virginia's footsteps and go from last year's historic loss to Fairleigh Dickinson to the program's first Final Four since 1980?
Can the Big 12 and SEC justify having eight teams apiece in the tournament, tied for the most in the country, and send multiple teams deep into the bracket?
Can Arizona make a Final Four run and prolong the shelf life of the disappearing Pac-12 into April?
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Before putting pen to paper and filling out our brackets, let's review the winners and losers from Selection Sunday:
Winners
North Carolina
It's not just landing the No. 1 seed in the West Region that makes UNC one of the big winners from the tournament draw. Despite being the weakest of the four top seeds — joining Connecticut in the East, Houston in the South and Purdue in the Midwest — the Tar Heels are in what looks on paper to be the easiest region. UNC is joined at the top of the West by No. 2 Arizona, No. 3 Baylor, No. 4 Alabama and No. 5 Saint Mary's, the tournament's flimsiest top grouping. To get out of the first weekend, the Tar Heels will have to avoid losing to a No. 16 and then beat the winner of No. 8 Mississippi State and No. 9 Michigan State.
Kansas
Not counting the abbreviated COVID season, the Jayhawks' 22 wins are the program's fewest in the regular season under Bill Self since Self's debut year in 2003-04. Kansas lost eight games in conference play; before this year, the program's most league defeats under Self were six in 2018-19 and 2020-21. KU finished tied for fifth in the Big 12, a new low for a program that had finished lower than second in the conference standings just once under Self and never lower than third. And here we are anyway: KU is still a No. 4 seed opposite No. 13 Samford in the Midwest region and in possession of a friendly draw into the second weekend.
Illinois
Illinois was hovering between a No. 3 and a No. 4 heading into Sunday but ended up on the No. 3 line in the East. That's a just reward for the second-place team from the Big Ten and owners of 14 combined Quad 1 and Quad 2 wins. After an extended tournament drought from 2014-20, the Illini are dancing for the fourth year in a row and a top-four seed for the third time under coach Brad Underwood. The next step will be advancing out of the opening weekend, something the program hasn't done since reaching the championship game in 2005.
Virginia
The facts didn't seem to support a bid for the Cavaliers. Virginia finished four games out of first in the ACC. The Cavaliers entered the postseason 55th in the NET rankings with just two Quad 1 wins. Overall, the record, the wins and the team's performance didn't warrant inclusion in the field; of the 92 pre-tournament brackets collected by Bracket Matrix, just seven had UVA as one of the 68 teams. It doesn't make sense, but here we are anyway: Virginia is a No. 10 seed in one of the play-in games opposite Colorado State.
Purdue and Rick Barnes
Putting Purdue as the No. 1 seed in the Midwest and Tennessee as the No. 2 increases the odds that one of the Boilermakers and Tennessee advances to the Final Four. For the Boilermakers, a Final Four bid would be the program's first since 1980 and help erase some of the bad vibes still lingering from last year's loss. The Volunteers have never been. Barnes made his first tournament appearance as a head coach at Providence in 1989 but has made the national semifinals just once across stops with the Friars, Clemson, Texas and Tennessee That came with point guard T.J. Ford and the Longhorns in 2003.
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Losers
Iowa State
Tennessee's early exit from the SEC tournament combined with Iowa State's dominant win against Houston to win the Big 12 championship had put the Cyclones in late contention for a No. 1 seed. Instead, however, ISU landed as the No. 2 seed in the East, joining a region led by top-overall seed Connecticut, Illinois and No. 4 Auburn. That's a very crowded and top-heavy side of the bracket that does no favors to any one of the favorites. But it's particularly cruel to the Cyclones, who had the résumé to at least avoid being placed in the same region with the Huskies.
Trev Alberts
This will be an awkward few days for Alberts, the former Nebraska athletics director who just left for the same position at Texas A&M. Turns out the selection committee does have a sense of humor, if you look close enough: No. 9 A&M will take on the No. 8 Cornhuskers in the first round of the South Regional. That's good news for the Aggies, one of the bubble teams heading into Selection Sunday, but not-so-great news for Alberts, who was largely able to dodge questions on his way out of Lincoln but will spend this week in the spotlight.
Big East
There was a disconnect between how the Big East was viewed during the regular season — as maybe the second-best conference in Division I — and how the league was seen by the selection committee. The Big East sent just three teams into tournament play in the Huskies, South Region No. 2 Marquette and Midwest Region No. 3 Creighton, leaving bubble teams such as St. John's, Providence and Seton Hall on the outside of the field. The conference had averaged over five bids per year in the previous nine tournaments, so to have just three this March is definitely a surprise.
Mountain West
Like the Big East, the Mountain West was a regular-season powerhouse predicted to place as many as six teams in the field. Unlike the Big East, however, the MWC did just that: get six teams in the bracket, equaling the most for a mid-major league with the Atlantic 10 in 2014. The issue is with seeding, and where the committee placed teams from the deepest non-major conference in the country. Boise State and Colorado State were made No. 10 seeds in play-in games against Colorado and the Cavaliers, respectively. Regular-season conference champion Utah State is the Midwest No. 8. Tournament champion New Mexico is the No. 11 seed in the West. Nevada won 26 games, finished in second place in the conference and is the East No. 10. And then there's San Diego State, which finished fifth but earned the No. 5 seed in the East.