March Madness brackets set, with 14 SEC teams in the men’s : NPR

Transfer over, Large East and ACC: School basketball has a brand new heavyweight convention.

The Southeastern Convention, usually recognized for its dominance on the soccer discipline, has set a brand new March Insanity file by sending 14 of its 16 groups to the NCAA Division I males’s basketball match. The SEC additionally boasts two of the match’s 4 No. 1 seeds, Auburn and Florida.

And the South Carolina girls’s basketball workforce, led by head coach Daybreak Staley, earned a No. 1 seed of their journey to defend final 12 months’s nationwide championship. However the girls’s discipline this 12 months is filled with different severe contenders, together with UCLA, USC and UConn. 

On the boys’s facet, a few of sport’s powerhouse packages had blended data this season, and their seeds mirrored that. Whereas the Duke Blue Devils had been named a No. 1 seed for the fifteenth time, different perennial names like Kansas and UConn got No. 7 and No. 8 seeds, respectively, whereas one other, North Carolina, managed solely a No. 11 seed and should win a Tuesday play-in sport with a purpose to attain the spherical of 64. 

The lads’s match ideas off Tuesday, and the complete Spherical of 64 will get underway Thursday and Friday. The ladies’s match follows a day behind, with the primary video games Wednesday and the Spherical of 64 starting Friday.

This is what to know:

Who’re the No. 1 seeds? 

No shock, the 28-5 Auburn Tigers had been awarded the match’s prime general seed. Auburn misplaced solely 5 video games all season lengthy. 4 of these losses belong to opponents that at the moment are seeded No. 1 or No. 2 within the NCAA match — Duke, Florida, Alabama and Tennessee. And the Tigers have misplaced three of their final 4 video games, which does not normally bode nicely for his or her match probabilities.

One other No. 1 seed was awarded to 31-3 Duke. The Blue Devils’ star freshman ahead Cooper Flagg sprained his ankle Thursday, however Duke went on to win the ACC match with out him. He is anticipated to be out there for the match.

Rounding out the boys’s prime seeds are 30-4 Houston and 30-4 Florida, which locked of their spots with their titles within the Large 12 and SEC convention tournaments, respectively.

Within the girls’s bracket, the highest general seed was awarded to UCLA — the primary time in program historical past the Bruins earned a No. 1 seed. That is a reputation with a variety of historical past within the males’s sport, the place the Bruins have gained 11 nationwide titles and reached the Remaining 4 19 occasions. However UCLA girls’s basketball has had nowhere close to that stage of success: They’ve by no means reached the Remaining 4. With stars Lauren Betts and Kiki Rice, something much less will likely be a disappointment.

Rounding out the highest seeds are South Carolina, Southern Cal and Texas. Although South Carolina went undefeated final season, they appear extra susceptible this season — and any of these prime seeds, plus robust No. 2 seeds like UConn and TCU, may finish their repeat hopes.    

Lauren Betts, No. 51 of UCLA, and JuJu Watkins, No. 12 of USC, are two of faculty basketball’s greatest gamers. Each groups earned a No. 1 seed.

Andy Lyons/Getty Photos/Getty Photos North America

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Andy Lyons/Getty Photos/Getty Photos North America

Who may very well be this 12 months’s Cinderella groups? 

On the boys’s facet, the trendiest upset decide could be the No. 11 Drake Bulldogs, led by first-year head coach Ben McCollum. McCollum gained 4 Division II nationwide titles at his earlier faculty, Northwest Missouri State. They will face No. 6 Missouri on Thursday. 

Maintain your eye, too, on UC San Diego. It is no small feat for a mid-major faculty to qualify for the match in any respect — not to mention within the first season it was eligible. The Tritons have completed simply that, and for his or her efforts had been awarded a No. 12 seed and a first-round matchup Thursday in opposition to No. 5 seed Michigan. 

Within the girls’s match, greater seeds have all the time had extra success than within the males’s sport. No workforce worse than a No. 3 seed has ever lower down the nets.

One contender to make that historical past may very well be Iowa. Sure, the Hawkeyes have been runner-ups the final two years in a row. However that was with megastar Caitlin Clark, who graduated final 12 months and now performs within the WNBA. This 12 months, Iowa does not have the resume for seed greater than No. 6, however nonetheless the Hawkeyes have been frisky, knocking off then-No. 4 USC in February on the day Clark’s jersey was retired.

Which first-round matchups ought to I watch? 

Within the males’s match, Missouri vs. Drake will likely be circled on a variety of followers’ calendars. Followers can even have a watch on two Southern area video games: Michigan vs. UC San Diego, in fact, and No. 4 Texas A&M vs. No. 13 Yale. Each of those greater seeds are on main upset alert: The Tritons have gained 15 straight getting into the match, the nation’s longest profitable streak. And Yale final 12 months pulled off the upset in opposition to then-No. 4 Auburn. 

It will even be intriguing to see if the SEC lives as much as the hype. These groups have been so spectacular all 12 months lengthy. However the final time one convention despatched a file variety of groups to the Large Dance — the Large East in 2011 — solely two of these groups reached the Candy 16. Whether or not the SEC fare any higher remains to be an open query.

Within the girls’s match, huge upsets are extra uncommon, and star energy is the primary draw. (Final 12 months, the ladies’s title sport drew millions more viewers than the boys’s, and Clark was an enormous motive why.) Large names embody Juju Watkins at No. 1 seed USC, Paige Bueckers at No. 2 UConn and Flau’jae Johnson with No. 3 LSU. All of them needs to be a terrific watch, irrespective of the opponent. 

When do the tournaments start? 

The lads’s match ideas off with the opening “first 4” video games on Tuesday and Wednesday, then the insanity will get underway subsequent Thursday and Friday with the spherical of 64.

Males’s First 4

Tuesday, March 18 and Wednesday, March 19

Males’s Spherical of 64

Thursday, March 20 and Friday, March 21

Males’s Spherical of 32

Saturday, March 22 and Sunday, March 23

Males’s Candy 16

Thursday, March 27 and Friday, March 28

Males’s Elite Eight

Saturday, March 29 and Sunday, March 30

Males’s Remaining 4

Saturday, April 5

Males’s Nationwide Championship Sport

Monday, April 7

The ladies start their match a day later, with the primary 4 video games on Wednesday and Thursday adopted by the complete spherical of 64 subsequent Friday and Saturday.

Girls’s First 4

Wednesday, March 19 and Thursday, March 20

Girls’s Spherical of 64

Friday, March 21 and Saturday, March 22

Girls’s Spherical of 32

Sunday, March 23 and Monday, March 24

Girls’s Candy 16

Friday, March 28 and Saturday, March 29

Girls’s Elite Eight

Sunday, March 30 and Monday, March 31

Girls’s Remaining 4

Friday, April 4

Girls’s Nationwide Championship Sport

Sunday, April 6