Unlikely teams at the top
Expectations weren’t high this season for both Purdue, Marquette
Purdue and Marquette were far from the favorites in their conferences going into the season. They are now the top two seeds in the East Region of the NCAA Tournament.
NCAA EAST REGION
Big Ten regular-season and tournament champion Purdue (29-5) is a No. 1 seed for the first time since 1996 and fourth time overall.
Led by big man Zach
Edey, the Boilermakers are going to the NCAA Tournament for the eighth time in a row and 34th overall. They play Friday in Columbus, Ohio, against the winner of First Four matchup between Texas Southern and Fairleigh Dickinson.
Marquette (28-6) is in the tournament for the second year in a row for coach Shaka Smart, the coach who took Virginia Commonwealth to the Final Four in 2011. The Golden Eagles, in consecutive tourneys for the first time since eight in a row from 2006 to 2013, will play 15th-seeded Vermont (23-10).
If the Big East champion Golden Eagles win their opener, they would then play either No. 7 seed Michigan State (19-12) or No. 10 seed Southern California (22-10). Coach Tom Izzo and the Spartans are in their record 25th straight tournament.
Duke, with standout freshmen and 35-year-old rookie coach Jon Scheyer, takes a nine-game win streak into the tourney after beating Virginia in the ACC tournament title game.
The fifth-seeded Blue Devils (26-8) haven’t lost since falling in overtime on the road against Virginia on Feb. 11. They play scoring ace Max Abmas and 12th-seeded Oral Roberts (30-4).
After spending last year as the coach-in-waiting for Mike Krzyzewski’s last Final Four run, Scheyer assembled the nation’s top-ranked recruiting class that’s got its first tournament trophy.
That first-round game Thursday in Orlando, Florida, is on the same side of the bracket as fourth-seeded Tennessee (23-10) and Louisiana-lafayette (26-7) in its first NCAA tourney since 2014.
Considering Kentucky (21-11) was teetering on the tournament bubble in January amid speculation of Hall of Fame coach John Calipari leaving for Texas, the Wildcats weren’t going to complain about its No. 6 seeding in the East.
The task for big man Oscar Tshiebwe and the Wildcats is winning Kentucky’s first NCAA Tournament game since 2019, a drought highlighted by last year’s epic first-round upset loss to No. 15 seed Saint Peter’s. They play No. 11 Providence (2111) on Friday in Greensboro, North Carolina.
“What happened last year? The first time in my career. And you know what? Hurt like hell,” Calipari said. “But you move on, and you move to the next. For me, this has got to be a ball because they’re going to feed off of me. They’ve got to see me (and) saying, ‘he is loose and ready to go’ because they’re going to feed off of me. And I’m excited about it.”
First-year coach Jerome Tang has Kansas State as the No. 3 seed in its first NCAA Tournament since 2019.
After leaving Scott Drew’s side at Baylor, where he had been an assistant coach for 19 years, Tang won 15 of his first 16 games and led the Wildcats to a 23-9 overall record while playing in the brutal Big 12.
Their first-round game Friday in Columbus is against Montana State (25-9), the
Big Sky champion in consecutive NCAA tourneys for the first time.
Penny Hardaway played in the 1992 and 1993 NCAA tourneys in his only two seasons as a player for the school then known as Memphis State. He has the Tigers in their second consecutive tourney as a coach.
The Tigers (26-8) won the American Athletic Conference tournament with a 75-65 over No. 1 Houston on Sunday and didn’t even cut down the nets in Fort Worth until after watching the selection show. The Cougars are still a No. 1 seed, in the Midwest Region.
Memphis is the eighth seed, with a difficult matchup against Conference USA champion Florida Atlantic (31-3) on Friday.
Tennessee has wins this season over Big 12 regular-season champion Kansas, a No. 1 seed, and Big 12 tourney champ Texas, a No. 2 seed. The Volunteers also lost twice to Kentucky.
It will be harder to overlook Purdue and Marquette in March than it was before the season began. The Boilermakers have steadied things since losing three of four games in mid-february and take a five-game win streak into the NCAA Tournament.
While Smart never made it out of the first round of the NCAA Tournament in his three appearances over six seasons with Texas, Marquette could mimic his old VCU team and make a deep NCAA run on the 20th anniversary of the last of Marquette’s three Final Four appearances.