With little controversy and no glaring omissions from the 64-team showcase, NCAA tournament field was announced Sunday, and all went smoothly except for last-hour losses by two of the top teams.
Kentucky, one of the teams that fell Sunday, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Purdue were selected the No. 1 seeds for the tournament that starts Thursday and ends April 1 in East Rutherford, N.J.Kentucky's loss to Mississippi State in the Southeastern Conference tournament championship game ended the Wildcats' 28-game winning streak, dropped the to 28-2 and probably cost them the overall No. 1 seed.
That apparently went to Massachusetts (31-1), which was seeded No. 1 in the East. The Atlantic 10 champion will open against Central Florida (11-18), one of two sub-.500 teams in the field and the one with the worst record.
Kentucky, the No. 1 seed in the Midwest, gets the other team with a losing record, San Jose State (13-16).
Connecticut (30-2), the Big East champion, topped the bracket in the Southeast, while Purdue (25-5), the three-time Big Ten champion, was No. 1 in the West.
Purdue, which lost to Iowa on Saturday in its finale, got the top seed when Kansas (26-4) lost to Iowa State on Sunday in the Big Eight tournament championship game.
"It changed the situation as far as Kansas was concerned," said Bob Frederick, the NCAA tournament selection committee chairman and Kansas athletic director.
He said the committee considered Cincinnati, Purdue and Kansas as a No. 1 seed and picked Purdue because it won nine of its last 10 games.
Frederick said Kentucky's loss meant the Wildcats would not play the team with the worst record in the field.
"The loss will help us," Kentucky coach Rick Pitino said. "It shows us we're not invincible."
The game, however, ended too late to help Mississippi State.
"We tried to adjust Mississippi State because of their victory," he said. "To be honest, due to the lateness of the hour, we couldn't make an adjustment on that without unraveling our entire bracket."
The Atlantic Coast Conference had six schools selected - Wake Forest, Georgia Tech, Clemson, Maryland, Duke and North Carolina - one more than the Big East and Big Ten and two more than the Atlantic 10, Big Eight, Conference USA, Pac-10 and Southeastern.
That gives eight leagues a total of 36 bids, 56 percent of the field. There are 31 conferences represented in the field with first-year Conference USA the only one not to have an automatic bid.
"The seeding was really hard but the hardest part was the ramification of the selection process," Frederick said. "There are young people involved in our decisions. It was a good process for us. I think it will be a great tournament."
The lowest-seeded of the at-large teams were Arkansas and California, both No. 12s.
Among the teams considered to have had a shot at an at-large build which didn't get one were Providence, Minnesota, Illinois and Fresno State.
"California and Arkansas were among a number considered at the end," Frederick said. "Why no Providence? Providence was 17-11 and 5-10 against top 100 teams. Again, we went on strength of schedule."
Massachusetts will open play Thursday at Providence, R.I.
The other games there are: fifth-seeded Bradley against No. 9 Stanford; No. 5 Penn State against No. 12 Arkansas, the national runner-up last season; and No. 4 Marquette against No. 13 Monmouth.
The other half of the East regional will be held in Richmond, Va., on Friday and Saturday with second-seeded Georgetown facing Mississippi Valley State; No. 3 Texas Tech against Northern Illinois; No. 6 North Carolina, making its 22nd consecutive tournament appearance, against New Orleans; and No. 7 New Mexico against No. 10 Kansas State.
The Southeast Regional begins Thursday in Indianapolis, with top-seeded Connecticut against Colgate leading the two doubleheaders that also includes No. 8 Duke, back in the tournament after missing last season, against No. 9 Eastern Michigan; No. 5 Mississippi State against Virginia Commonwealth; and defending champion and fourth-seeded UCLA against No. 13 Princeton and coach Pete Carril, who announced his retirement after the Tigers qualified with an Ivy League playoff victory over Pennsylvania.
The other half of the bracket will be played at Orlando, Fla., on Friday and Sunday and will feature: No. 6 Indiana vs. No. 11 Boston College; No. 3 Georgia Tech vs. No. 14 Austin Peay; No. 7 Temple vs. No. 10 Oklahoma; and No. 2 Cincinnati vs. North Carolina-Greensboro, one of four schools making a first NCAA tournament appearance.
The Midwest Regional has Kentucky facing San Jose State on Thursday at Dallas. The other games are: No. 8 Wisconsin-Green Bay against No. 9 Virginia Tech; No. 5 Iowa State, which beat Kansas in the Big Eight final Sunday and probably cost the Jayhawks a No. 1 seeding, against No. 12 California; and No. 4 Utah against No. 13 Canisius, the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference champion making its first appearance since 1957.
Second-seeded Wake Forest, which beat Georgia Tech on Sunday to become the Atlantic Coast Conference's first repeat champion in 14 years, will play No. 15 Northeast Louisiana on Friday at Milwaukee. The other matchups are: No. 6 Louisville against No. 11 Tulsa; No. 3 Villanova against No. 14 Portland, making its first trip since 1959; and No. 7 Michigan against No. 7 Texas.
Purdue, the first school to win three straight Big Ten titles outright since the Ohio State teams of the early '60s, leads the bracket in the West and will play No. 16 Western Carolina, another of the first-appearance schools, in Albuquerque, N.M., on Thursday.
The other games are: No. 8 Georgia against No. 9 Clemson; No. 5 Memphis against No. 12 Drexel; and No. 4 Syracuse against No. 13 Montana State.
The other half of the bracket starts Friday at Tempe, Ariz., and has No. 2 Kansas against South Carolina State; No. 6 Iowa against George Washington; No. 3 Arizona against No. 14 Valparaiso, a first-timer; and No. 7 Maryland against No. 10 Santa Clara.
The East Regional will be at Atlanta, the Southeast at Lexington, Ky., the Midwest at Minneapolis and the West at Denver. Atlanta and Minneapolis are March 21 and 23, while Denver and Lexington are March 22 and 24.