New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Huskies locked into a 1 seed, but who will join them?
There’s not a whole lot of mystery to UConn’s NCAA Tournament resume.
The Huskies are a virtual lock for a No. 1 seed — maybe even the overall No. 1, as was the case in both top 16 reveals — for the field of 64 in Texas. They won the Big East Tournament for the 19th time Monday, and are 24-1 overall. Not to mention, they’ve been ranked first in the AP poll for four consecutive weeks.
This year’s tournament will look different. First-round games will be held in three Texas cities, beginning March 21: San Antonio; Austin and San Marcos. All subsequent games will be in San Antonio, with the Final Four slated for April 2 and 4 at the Alamodome.
But, with Selection Monday a mere four days away, there’s plenty that still needs to be sorted out in terms of seeding. First and foremost, what schools are most likely to join the 11-time national champions on the top line?
Let’s dive deeper into how the bracket is shaping up.
WHO’S NO. 1?
As we noted above, the Huskies will be a No. 1 seed. They might not be the No. 1 overall seed, however, with Stanford having bolstered an already impressive resume during the Pac-12 Tournament.
Stanford (25-2, 22-2) has six top-25 NET wins, including a 75-55 victory over UCLA in the Pac-12 championship game. UConn, because of its weaker conference slate, has just two (South Carolina and Tennessee). The Cardinal are first in the NET — a new computer metric used by the NCAA — while the Huskies are second.
“It’s just a nature of the beast,” ESPN bracketologist Charlie Creme said on this week’s UConn
Report podcast. “The Pac-12 is just a better league than the Big East. While that hasn’t caught up to UConn in any significant way, I guess maybe this is an example of where it did.”
How much better? The Pac-12 is ranked fifth in conference RPI and has four teams in the Top 25 of the AP poll. The Big East is seventh and has just one in UConn.
That said, don’t fret, the difference between landing the first or second overall seed will be minimal this season because of the single-region site.
Creme has South Carolina and Texas A&M joining Stanford and UConn as No. 1 seeds in his latest bracket projection.
“Everybody’s travel is essentially the same,” Creme noted. “The difference between being the one overall, the two overall — and honestly being a one seed or a two seed — it’s nice for prestige, the one versus two, but in terms of actually competitive balance this year, it honestly doesn’t really matter all that much.”
WHO ELSE FROM
THE BIG EAST IS GETTING IN?
Marquette appears relatively safe for an at-large bid following its run to the conference final. Creme penciled the Golden Eagles (19-6, 15-5) in as a No. 8 seed.
But after them, it gets dicey.
DePaul, which was ranked as high as No. 17 this season, fell out of the Top 25 for the first time Monday following their Big East quarterfinal loss to Villanova. The Blue Demons were 1-4 down the stretch, and have just one top-40 RPI win in Kentucky.
Still, Creme has the Blue Demons as one of the last four teams in the field, a No. 11 seed.
“I’m still not 100%,” he said. “There’s a lot of problems with DePaul’s resume, but there’s some things that also lead me to believe they might be in.”
What might give them an edge? “Overall record matters still,” Creme said, referring to DePaul’s 14-8, 11-6 marks. “It’s one of the things that a lot of people have forgotten. ‘We beat this team and they didn’t beat that team.’ But overall record is still one of the criteria, and some of the teams that DePaul is battling (on the bubble) really don’t bring a lot to the table. … They’re .500 teams, they’re slightly below .500, they’re barely above .500.”
Another Big East team, Seton Hall (14-7, 12-6), may not be as fortunate after getting bounced the same day as DePaul.
“That loss to Creighton in the quarters was pretty devastating,” Creme said.
HOW MUCH WEIGHT WILL BE GIVEN TO TEAMS AFFECTED BY COVID-RELATED ABSENCES?
Not much. At least Creme doesn’t think so.
“Everybody’s had something to deal with, some of them more public than others,” Creme noted. “I think we have to assume that this has been trying and hard on every team, every program and that everybody went through something.”
Creme suggested it’s too subjective to parse through the significance of COVID-related issues when comparing one team’s resume to another, and that it won’t alter the selection process much.
“There’s little things to look at, with injuries maybe,” he said. “That would be more something to consider because that’s historically what (the committee) has done. And that’s not necessarily everybody’s plight, but COVID is.”
HOW MANY SCHOOLS CAN WIN IT ALL?
Obviously, it’s a subjective call. Creme believes there’s seven schools capable of cutting down the nets in San Antonio, possibly eight: Stanford, UConn, Texas A&M, South Carolina, NC State, Maryland and Baylor, with Louisville on the fence.
Enjoy the unpredictability while it lasts.
“From a competitive standpoint, let’s hope that if teams are going to get UConn, they’re going to get them this year,” he said, “because after this year I’m not sure they’re going to be an available team to beat the next few years.”
If you haven’t heard, the Paige Bueckers-Azzi Fudd Huskies are going to be scary good.
“If you’re going to get into the women’s basketball tournament,” Creme said, “enjoy that it’s a little more wide open right now because next year you’re probably going to want to roll your eyes when you ask me the question (how many schools are legitimate national championship contenders?). You’re going to say ‘UConn?’ And I’m going to say, ‘Yeah.’ ”