A sleepy Selection Sunday this was not.
North Carolina barely slid into this year’s version of March Madness, a development that led its athletic director to remind everyone that he had nothing to do with that choice even though he’s the head of the group that sets the bracket.
Texas also made it in – barely — giving the Southeastern Conference a record 14 teams in the tournament, including overall top seed Auburn. The Tigers received higher billing than Duke even though they’ve lost three of their last four games.
And coach Rick Pitino’s reward for leading St. John’s back to prominence: a journey back to where his coaching career took off with his first Final Four – Providence – and a juicy potential second-round matchup against another coaching firebrand, John Calipari of Arkansas.
“There were,” North Carolina AD Bubba Cunningham said, “a number of challenges” in putting together a bracket that hoops fans can only hope provides as many thrills on the court as it did during the 60-minute bracket show.
Auburn beat out Duke to receive top billing in the tournament despite those three losses over the past two weeks, and despite also dropping a game to the Blue Devils back in December.
“We’ve got to get our mojo back a little bit,” Auburn coach Bruce Pearl said.
No. 1 seed Florida, which captured the SEC tournament by winning three games with an average margin of 15 points, opens as a slight favorite to win it all at the Final Four in San Antonio on April 5 and 7, according to BetMGM Sportsbook.
Clearly, one deciding factor in choosing Auburn over Duke was the Tigers’ schedule, which was second toughest in the country, largely on the strength of playing a conference that put so many teams in the field.
“The SEC had such an outstanding year, winning 88% of their nonconference games,” Cunningham explained.
Houston was the remaining top seed and could face a second-round matchup against No. 8 Gonzaga, making its 26th straight trip to the tournament.
North Carolina makes it and triggers some awkward explaining
On a more “normal” Selection Sunday, Texas making the field with 15 losses might have been the biggest talking point.
Instead, it was North Carolina’s inclusion that drew the most attention.
CBS analyst Seth Davis acknowledged it right away when he opened his interview with Cunningham by wondering “whether North Carolina may have gotten a little bit of an advantage with its AD as the chair.”
Cunningham’s vice-chair, Keith Gill, who, in an unusual move was also brought in for the interview, insisted it had not.
“As vice-chair, I managed all the conversations we had about North Carolina, and we had quite a few,” Gill said. He confirmed that Cunningham was not allowed to participate in any vote about his own school.
The Tar Heels were the last team in, based not on its 1-12 record against Quad 1 teams, but on its 8-0 mark against Quad 2, along with other favorable metrics, Gill said.
“You take all those things in consideration, and the committee felt they should earn that last spot,” Gill said.
Both North Carolina (vs. San Diego State) and Texas (vs. Xavier) are playing in the First Four, which kicks off the action Tuesday. The tournament gets into full swing Thursday and Friday with 32 games at eight sites around the country.
Bubble teams that did not make it include West Virginia, Indiana and Boise State.
Bracket gives Pitino and St. John’s a long and interesting road
Elsewhere in the bracket, Pitino leads his unprecedented sixth program into the tournament, and what a road he would have to take to get back to the Final Four.
First, he will travel to Providence, the same building where the coach led the Friars to a surprise Final Four trip back in 1987, to lead second-seeded St. John’s in a first-round game against Omaha. Pitino’s second game could come against Arkansas and Calipari in what would be a titanic matchup between two of the game’s biggest coaching names. Calipari’s first game in Providence is against none other than Bill Self and seventh-seeded Kansas.
Another coaching icon, Tom Izzo, leads Michigan State to its 27th straight tournament. The Spartans are seeded second and will face America East champion Bryant in its opener.
There’s also UConn, seeking the sport’s first threepeat since the early ’70s but seeded eighth with a potential second-round game against Florida next weekend.
SEC regular season repeat in store?
The biggest quirks in this year’s bracket all involved the SEC:
— There are three potential second-round games between SEC teams – the sort of matchups the committee is asked to avoid, but that became inevitable with 14 teams in the bracket.
— The SEC, Big Ten (eight spots) and Big 12 (seven) captured 42.5% of the tournament’s 68 spots, which leads to questions about whether March Madness really needs to expand to bring even more big-school teams into the mix. Then again, had this been a 76-team tournament, West Virginia, Indiana and Ohio State would have made the cut, according to the committee’s list of “first teams out.”
— Now that the SEC has established itself as a hoops conference comes the question of whether the league can capture its first national title since 2012, when Kentucky won it all.
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