It’s Selection Sunday. Do you know where your bubbles are?
We do. They’re bouncing around from College Park, Md., to San Diego to Tucson to State College, Pa. When the NCAA Tournament bracket is announced today at 4 p.m., some bubbles will burst. Or they could carry teams to this week’s first rounds from Miami to Portland, Ore., and from Kansas City, Mo., to Greensboro, N.C.
While bubble teams will likely only see Detroit on TV, the top seeds with the best shots at reaching the Final Four are a lot more set.
Sure, the NCAA Tournament selection committee has made decisions that baffle anyone who owns a TV. But it’s getting better. For the first time, all of its No. 1 seeds made the Final Four last year. Since 1985, 14 No. 1 seeds have won national titles and 23 have reached the title game. Not that it has any bearing on today, but it appears at least three of the four No. 1 seeds are set:
• Pittsburgh. Yes, it lost in the first round of the Big East Tournament. Big deal. It’s one game. Pitt probably secured a No. 1 berth before it left for New York. That’s what happens when you have the top RPI and you’ve beaten Siena and Florida State (the latter on the road), Syracuse, West Virginia twice and Connecticut twice.
• North Carolina. It won’t win the Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament, but it did win the regular-season title, which is a lot harder. Its RPI is 3 and it played the ACC Tournament without star point guard Ty Lawson. The selection committee really researches injuries. It will check Lawson, who is expected back this week.
• Louisville. It won the regular-season and tournament titles of the toughest conference in the country. Enough said.
The fourth No. 1 is up for grabs. Memphis is 31-3, has won 25 straight and, based on the “eye test” TV wags babble about, is possibly the scariest team in the country. However, its strength of schedule is 54th and its only wins over teams with RPIs higher than 45 were Tennessee (23) and Gonzaga (34).
“I’m not a big fan of the eye test,” said ESPN bracketologist Joe Lunardi, who Saturday night had Pitt, Carolina, Louisville and Memphis as No. 1s. “I try not to be an optometrist. I try to be a bracketologist. But I will tell you that Memphis belongs on the top line, and I believe by Sunday they will be there.”
At whose expense? OK, so Connecticut plays in Madison Square Garden as if it’s that house in Amityville. The Huskies won at West Virginia and Louisville and beat Villanova and Syracuse. The Huskies haven’t had a bad loss all season. However, three have come in their last 12, and the selection committee is huge on the last 12 games.
Memphis coach John Calipari had barely picked up the box score from Saturday’s 64-39 rout of Tulsa for the Conference USA tourney title when he started campaigning to the committee.
“They’ve been fair with our program for three years,” Calipari told ESPN News. “They haven’t played into this ‘You’re not in the SEC, ACC, Big East.’ They don’t play that. So they look at us, and we’ve advanced every year because they’ve given us the right seed.”
However, also possibly sneaking is Duke. It could win the ACC Tournament title at the Georgia Dome today, which would look awfully persuasive alongside its No. 2 RPI and No. 2 strength of schedule.
