The NCAA Tournament selection committee revealed its top 16 teams as of this morning with Alabama as the overall No. 1 seed. If the Crimson Tide is able to stay on the top line on Selection Sunday, it would be their first time as the overall seed.
When committee chairman Chris Reynolds was asked what was different about this season that some in the recent past, he noted that there is very little separation among the teams at the top than in other seasons.
As the committee goes through the bracket and compares teams, sometimes what stands out in a comparison, good or bad, can be decisive. For Alabama, that was the win at overall No. 2 Houston. The Cougars were cited for being undefeated on the road, while Purdue has only lost to Quad 1 teams. That is also true of Kansas, which has the best schedule this season by far, but five losses.
Only one of those losses is questionable. That loss to TCU is only questionable because of the scoring margin and the committee does not get too concerned about that. That should be obvious since Alabama's drubbing by Oklahoma did not do enough to keep the Crimson Tide from being the overall No. 1.
If there is a message in any of this, it seems that the quality of a team's losses is not as important as some other factors. They are certainly not nothing, but quality wins seem to matter more.
NCAA early tournament top seeds
The NCAA's early top 16 seeds for the NCAA Tournament as revealed on CBS with overall seed in parenthesis.
| Seed | South | Midwest | East | West |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. 1 |  |  |  |  |
| No. 2 |  |  |  |  |
| No. 3 |  |  |  |  |
| No. 4 |  |  |  |  |
Check out Palm's latest bracket, full field of 68 and all the teams on the bubble on the Bracketology hub.
The two worst losses on the top line of the bracket belong to the top two teams. The second line features Arizona ahead of UCLA. The Bruins are lacking in quality wins, which Arizona has in abundance. All four of Arizona's losses are to teams that very likely will miss the tournament, while the opposite is true for UCLA.
Strength of schedule is still important also, as evidenced by five Big 12 teams appearing on the committee's list. Each of those teams has more losses than any other team on its seed line.
On the No. 4 -seed line, Marquette and Xavier were switched from their original regionals in order to better balance the bracket. That creates a potential regular season rematch in the sweet 16 between the Golden Eagles and Purdue.
In my extension of the committee's bracket, third overall seed Purdue was paired with a First Four winner in the first round instead of No. 2 seed Houston because the Boilermakers are in the only Friday-Sunday sub-regional among the No. 1 seeds. The First Four winners on each seed line must have one winner advance to play on Thursday and the other on Friday.
The teams that were debated, but missed the cut for the top 16 are (in alphabetical order) UConn, Creighton, Miami and Saint Mary's. I slotted those teams in as the No. 5 seeds in the latest bracket update.
Of course, by the time you read this, that bracket would be obsolete. That is the nature of in-season bracketing. More games keep getting added to the mix.
