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| Florida's forward Will Yeguete (15) Patric Young (4) celebrate after the second half of an NCAA college basketball game against Kentucky in the Championship round of the Southeastern Conference men's tournament, Sunday, March 16, 2014, in Atlanta. Florida won 61-60. |
The surprises start right at the top of the NCAA tournament bracket: Virginia is a No. 1 seed.
They
keep going throughout the matchups. Last year's national champion,
Louisville, was seeded fourth in the Midwest despite playing well enough
to be considered a No. 1 by many.
And
speaking of that Midwest region - Wichita State and Michigan are there,
as well, making it three of last year's Final Four participants all
vying for one spot this year.
SMU, the team
led on a renaissance by coaching lifer Larry Brown - nowhere to be
found. And Michigan State, the team that geared things up in time to
win the Big Ten tournament, is only a No. 4 seed.
The
tournament begins Tuesday with a pair of First Four games, and things
get going in earnest Thursday when 32 of the 64 teams in the main draw
take to the floor.
As expected, Florida earned
the top overall seed and is No. 1 in the South. Undefeated Wichita
State is on top in the brutal Midwest, and Arizona took top billing in
the West despite losing to UCLA in the Pac-12 final.
In
the end, the individual matchups mean much more than the seeding
details. Still, some of the numbers the selection committee came up with
this year were head-scratchers - yet another reason Warren Buffett felt
perfectly comfortable fronting the insurance money to pay a $1 billion
prize to anyone who can fill out a perfect bracket.
Wake
Forest athletic director Ron Wellman, the chairman of the selection
committee, said Virginia's twin ACC championships - regular season and
tournament - made the Cavaliers (28-6) the choice for a 1 seed over
Michigan and Villanova, despite an RPI rating of 11.
"Virginia's total resume was very impressive," Wellman said. "They continued to impress us throughout the year."
Michigan
is a `2' in the Midwest and could need to get through Duke, among
others, simply to reach the regional final. The top half of the bracket
includes Wichita State, Kentucky and Louisville.
The
last bubble teams in were Iowa, which plays Tennessee in the First Four
on Wednesday; and North Carolina State, which plays Xavier on Tuesday.
Sitting
out was SMU - a team almost all the experts had securely in the
bracket. Not the folks in the conference room, who couldn't overcome the
Mustangs' strength of schedule: 129.
"When I
saw Louisville (was a 4 seed), I kind of figured that they didn't have a
lot of respect for our conference," Brown said. "But we only can blame
ourselves, that's the way I look at it."
Led by Rick Pitino's Cardinals, the new American Athletic Conference placed four teams in the tournament.
And
while the committee didn't show much love for the AAC, it did dole out
plenty of at-large spots to the big conferences, while only seven spots
went to the mid-majors. The so-called small schools took 11 slots in
each of the last two seasons.
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