About the closest thing to a sure thing: UConn.
The defending champion Huskies earned the top seed in the NCAA Tournament, joined by Houston,Purdue and North Carolina as No. 1 seeds in a bracket that started going haywire even before the pairings were announced Sunday evening.
Of those top teams, only UConn heads into the tournament coming off a win. The others lost in their conference tournaments, yet those were hardly the only surprises over the final weekend of hoops before the sport’s main event hits center stage.
The Kentucky Wildcats took a No. 3 seed in the South, even after an early exit from the SEC tournament. They'll face 14-seed Oakland.
Illinois is another 3-seed, cemented by wining the Big Ten tournament minutes before the brackets were announced. Their first-round matchup is with No. 14 seed Morehead State.
Unexpected titles placed teams like Oregon, North Carolina State and even Duquesne, none of whom were projected to make the tournament, into the field of 68 via the automatic bid that goes to conference champions. The teams they beat gobbled up a handful of the 34 at-large bids, thus shrinking the number of spots available to teams on the so-called bubble.
That included invites pulled back for teams like Oklahoma, Seton Hall, Pittsburgh and sentimental favorite Indiana State.
The tournament starts Tuesday with two First Four games, including a matchup between Virginia and Colorado State. The 32 first-round games take place Thursday and Friday. The Final Four is set for April 6-8 in Glendale, Arizona.
(AP Photo Mary Altaffer)
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