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PROVO — The NCAA Tournament runs through West Lafayette, Indiana, at least according to the NCAA selection committee during its early bracket preview midway through the final month of the regular season.
The committee released its preview of the top-16 overall seeds Saturday on CBS, with Purdue wrestling the No. 1 overall seed from UConn, which ranks first in both in the Associated Press Top 25 and the USA Today Coaches Poll.
Four teams from the Big 12 are on track for a top-four seed, the most in the country followed by three each from the SEC and Big Ten.
Here are the top-16 overall seeds as of Saturday, as revealed by the NCAA selection committee on the bracket preview on CBS:
- Purdue (Big Ten)
- UConn (Big East)
- Houston (Big 12)
- Arizona (Pac-12)
- North Carolina (ACC)
- Tennessee (SEC)
- Marquette (Big East)
- Kansas (Big 12)
- Alabama (SEC)
- Baylor (Big 12)
- Iowa State (Big 12)
- Duke (ACC)
- Auburn (SEC)
- San Diego State (Mountain West)
- Illinois (Big Ten)
- Wisconsin (Big Ten)
The top-four overall seeds, and the inside track to a No. 1 seed in March, were Purdue, UConn, Houston and Arizona. The Boilermakers would gain geographic preference as the No. 1 overall seed, slotting them into the Midwest region in Detroit.
The East is based out of Boston, the South in Dallas, and the West in Los Angeles.
The Boilermakers are the No. 2 team in the NET, KenPom, the AP poll and the Coaches Poll. But the committee views them as the No. 1 overall seed as of the Saturday morning based on a 15-2 record in the Quad 1 and Quad 2 games.
Purdue has one fewer Quad 1 loss than Houston, which is 8-3 in such opportunities. But the Boilermakers — who are 23-2 against the nation's toughest schedule — are also 6-0 in the second quadrant to the Cougars' 1-0.
"It's not unprecedented for the committee to be unanimous on which four teams deserve to be the top seeds but to have just about everyone agree on the sequence of those teams in terms of how they were voted in on the seed list is highly unusual," said selection committee chairman Charles McClelland, who is also the commissioner of the Southwestern Athletic Conference, per NCAA.com. "If the history of the Bracket Preview Show is an indicator, these four teams will be prime candidates to be No. 1 seeds next month."
The top 16 seeds in bracket form 👀#BracketPreviewpic.twitter.com/zA5RrVAKTj
— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB) February 17, 2024
BYU, the No. 19-ranked team in the Associated Press Top 25 and ranks No. 9 in the NET and No. 14 in KenPom, was not among the top-four seeds in each of the four regionals in the early discussion. Neither was Utah State, the No. 27 team in the NET that rates No. 39 in KenPom.
The Cougars (18-6, 6-5 Big 12) are considered a "lock" for the NCAA Tournament by ESPN's Joe Lunardi, who currently has BYU as the No. 5 seed in the East regional.
Utah State is also comfortably in Lunardi's field of 68 as the No. 6 seed in the Midwest, with Utah vying for the No. 11 seed in the South via a First Four game with Northwestern, according to Palm
In his updated bracket projection following the NCAA's preview show, CBS Sports' Jerry Palm lists BYU as the No. 7 seed in the East regional.
Utah State is a No. 7 in the West, while Utah is among Lunardi's "Last Four In" with a spot in the First Four games opposite Nevada for the No. 11 seed in the Midwest.
Bracket Matrix lists BYU appearing in every online bracket projection, seeded anywhere from a No. 4 to a No. 7 in the tournament. Utah State is between a No. 5 and a No. 9 seed, while Utah is currently in 76% of bracket projections.
