Five Pac-12 teams, plus BYU and Utah State, make up a field of 68, which begins Thursday with the First Four
(Darron Cummings | AP) Fans arrive for an NCAA college basketball championship game between Illinois and Ohio State in the Big Ten Conference tournament, Sunday, March 14, 2021, in Indianapolis.
The COVID-19 pandemic forced everyone to wait two years for the reveal of an NCAA Tournament bracket, so, really, what’s an extra five minutes?
As 4 p.m. approached Sunday afternoon and CBS prepared to reveal the 68 players, the Big Ten Tournament championship game between two of the nation’s best teams, Ohio State and Illinois, went into overtime at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.
The Fighting Illini outlasted the Buckeyes, seemingly putting a hammer to one of the four No. 1 seeds. Then, finally, Bob Christianson’s “CBS NCAA Basketball Theme” started playing. Greg Gumbel, Clark Kellogg and Seth Davis appeared on screen and, thanks to CBS executives, were treated to the medium reveal. No small talk, some banter, just the seeds and confrontations.
In that moment, a year after the early days of the pandemic forced the cancellation of one of America’s great annual sports traditions, college basketball felt whole again.
Like any other year, there weren’t many surprises at the top. Undefeated and looking to become the first team to finish a season this way since 1976, Gonzaga is the No. 1 overall seed, joined on that seed line by Baylor, Illinois and Michigan. Alabama and Houston secured second seeds earlier Sunday by winning the SEC and American Athletic Conference tournaments, respectively, joined by two Big Ten programs, Iowa and Ohio State.
Like any other year, the real juice was not at the top of the pack, but rather focused on two things. Of note are specific first-round and potential second-round matchups that ended up on the right and wrong side of the bubble.
Reeling Villanova, which lost star senior guard Collin Gillespie to a season-ending knee injury late in the regular season, faces losing Big South champion Winthrop in the 5-12 South Region game. Two of the five Pac-12 teams in the field are also involved in 5-12 matchups, which are always trendy first-round picks. Colorado, the East’s No. 5 seed, has to face red-hot No. 12 Georgetown, which just won the Big East tournament crown, and Midwest No. 12 seed Oregon State, which won the Pac-12 tournament late Saturday night, gets No. 5 Tennessee, which appears to be a tough ask for the Beavers.
“Certainly their position on the seed list suffered because of the injury,” Kentucky selection committee chairman and athletic director Mitch Barnhart said of Gillespie and Villanova during a conference call with reporters. “There were obviously some losses that they suffered after that, but also teams behind them that played really, really well.”
Tasty potential second-round matchups abound. Michigan-LSU in the East, Kansas-USC in the West, Baylor-North Carolina in the South, Illinois vs. Loyola-Chicago and West Virginia-San Diego State in the Midwest.
The Selection Sunday bubble situation, with local and Pac-12 fingerprints, did not disappoint in terms of drama.
Utah State not only made it to the field, but it also avoided the top four, indicating the Aggies were safe without a ton of late debate from the selection committee. UCLA was a different story.
The Bruins faded horribly down the stretch, sliding toward bubble status by losing four in a row and six of ten to close the season. When Syracuse showed up as an 11 seed in the Midwest Region, there seemed to be a real possibility that the Bruins would be left out. Instead, the Bruins clinched the final 11th seed in the East Region, which includes a high-profile First Four matchup on Thursday. The winner will face No. 6 seed BYU on Saturday in the first round.
“We just tried to evaluate them against other teams and the committee looks at them from different angles,” Barnhart said. “We had to wonder if they had enough to get on the court. They did, but we felt their top seed was a little hurt by the way they played late in the year.”
The Cougars will have an interesting draw either way. Michigan State has an uncharacteristic 15-12 overall record, but made a February charge through the Big Ten to get on the bubble. UCLA had the aforementioned late-season struggles, but its A-game was enough to give it control of the Pac-12 for nearly three-quarters of the season.
A potential second-round matchup with third-seeded Texas would pit two teams ranked in the top 35 nationally in offensive and defensive efficiency.
Before what was a very entertaining Pac-12 Tournament last week, the league was in line to get four teams to the NCAA Tournament, so it was a nice boon when Oregon State stole the automatic bid late Saturday night.
None of these five Pac-12 teams were expected to be higher than a 5 seed, and none of them were, but Oregon, as the No. 7 seed in the West Region, is worth taking a flight on the first weekend. The Ducks get VCU in the first round, then potentially second-seeded Iowa for the right to advance to the Sweet 16.
Oregon won 10 of 11 to capture the regular-season league title before bowing out of the Pac-12 Tournament in a Friday semifinal against Oregon State.
