NCAA bracket 2015: March Madness bracket features Kentucky as overall No. 1

Posing as a reporter, former UNI star Ali Farokhmanesh interviewed Kansas fans about their favorite and least favorite tournament memories.

As you can see in the video, the fans were surprisingly gracious and had nothing but good things to say about his performance. Although one fan did say he was going to have to go back to therapy now.

Here’s our printable NCAA bracket PDF.

No. 16 seeds Manhattan and Hampton will play the first game, set to tip at 6:40 p.m. ET, for the right to take on No. 1 overall Kentucky on Thursday. Manhattan received an automatic bid for the second season in a row by outlasting heavily favored Iona in the MAAC championship game. Manhattan was a No. 13 seed last year and gave fourth-seeded Louisville a scare before eventually falling 71-64 in the round of 64.

One thing that’s certain about your bracket, whether it’s online or written by hand, is that it’ll be wrong. Kentucky may be the strongest NCAA Tournament favorite in recent memory, but the odds of correctly selecting each game in the annual event are almost unimaginable.

That unpredictable nature of the tournament is what makes it such an exciting sporting event, and the 2015 edition should be no different. Basketball will be played, upsets will happen and hearts will be broken. You just gotta hope your bracket doesn’t break, too.

Manhattan Jaspers vs. Hampton Pirates

Jasper was a priest who worked at Manhattan in the 1800s, credited with introducing the seventh inning stretch to baseball. Poor Jasper is about to get viciously marauded by some damn pirates.

Someone called in to the Kentucky Sports Radio show on Tuesday with a lovely story to tell.

According to the caller, Willie Cauley-Stein has befriended a boy named Blake Hundley who has been fighting brain cancer since 2012. Blake gave Willie one of his #TeamBlake bracelets last week when they met, and the Kentucky star hasn’t taken it off since. He even wore it in his sock during their SEC tournament games.

With no games on the slate for Monday, there’s plenty of time to pick your sleepers, Cinderellas and busts of the tournament. Download a PDF of our printable bracket here and get to work.

Kentucky, Villanova, Duke and Wisconsin were all awarded with No. 1 seeds, making them the favorites to make it to the Final Four in Indianapolis, at least in the eyes of the committee. That doesn’t, however, mean they will make it that far. Picking a chalk bracket can work out well, but it can also be completely ruined by an upset or two. If a double-digit seed makes a long run, like we’ve seen in recent years, your bracket could be chopped down with every upset victory.

For some, the first four days of the NCAA Tournament are essentially national holidays -- non-stop basketball starting Thursday afternoon and continuing late into the night on Sunday. The packed schedule with multiple games at once and a fresh one starting as soon as one ends makes for some unproductive work days, but also the best time of the year for college hoops fans.

The top teams highlight the action and many will have their eyes on No. 1 seed Kentucky. The Wildcats are yet to lose this season and are the heavy favorite to win it all. Their path to do so will begin Thursday night when they play the winner of the play-in game between Manhattan and Hampton. While Kentucky will play on the opening day of the tournament, viewers have to wait a while to see them. Kentucky’s game isn’t scheduled to tip until 9:40 p.m. ET. The game will be on CBS, making it easy for viewers to find it. Other games won’t be as easy to locate with CBS, TBS, TNT and truTV combining to broadcast the first two rounds.

Kentucky ran through the SEC Tournament similar to the way it ran through the regular season: emphatically, unblemished and without much cause for concern. As the Wildcats breezed past Arkansas in Nashville on Saturday to capture the tournament championship game, Kentucky bypassed one of college basketball’s best rituals. That’s right, Kentucky didn’t cut down the nets.

Ask five people and you’ll get five different answers for why the Wildcats chose not to do it. Center Dakari Johnson said his team simply forgot. A spokeswoman at Kentucky said the team needed more time to prepare for the selection show. Star big man Karl Towns had a different explanation:

Now that I’ve broken my arm patting myself on the back, it’s time to turn our attention to the committee. One of the things I strive to do every year is work some inconsistencies into my decision making to reflect the fact that sometimes a group of 10 people will come to conclusions together that one person would not make on their own (it’s the political scientist in me). This plan of attack is not perfect, as tonight’s results illustrated.

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In terms of job performance reviews, the NCAA Tournament selection committee is essentially an officiating crew: “You guys did a good job, but a couple of things ...” is pretty much the best it can hope for.

Mild criticism is always the goal for the committee, and for the most part it appears as though it has achieved that on Selection Sunday 2015. Beefs with the seedings of teams like Georgetown and Dayton, as well as the inclusion of UCLA, have been the most consistent rumblings, but for the most part it seems like the torches and pitchforks are going to remain in America’s collective shed.

One team waxed a No. 2 seed by 25. Another just lost to a different No. 2 seed for the second time this season, and went 0-5 against teams on the 2015 NCAA Tournament’s top three lines.

And yet Temple is not in the 2015 NCAA Tournament bracket, while UCLA is a No. 11 seed in the South Region.

With the field of 68 already unveiled, the NCAA has now released its full seeding order, showing its top team, all the way through the team it feels is weakest in the tournament.

This means that had UConn beaten SMU earlier Sunday in the AAC Championship game and stolen a bid, Dayton would have been left out of the field.

Round 1, also known as the “First Four,” will take place Tuesday and Wednesday night in Dayton, Ohio. The games will feature eight teams — the four lowest ranked conference champions and the four lowest at-large bids. The four winners will advance to the Round of 64.

The First Four round was added to the tournament in 2011 and has been taking place in Dayton ever since. That year VCU won its opening round game against USC and advanced all the way to the Final Four, becoming just the third 11 seed in NCAA Tournament history to do so. In 2012 South Florida played in the tournament’s opening round and advanced to the round of 32. Last year Tennessee made it to the Sweet 16 after knocking off Iowa in Round 1.

There are land mines waiting at every corner, but Kentucky is the easy pick to win the championship. We’re also going with Arizona, Iowa State and Oklahoma in the Final Four. Let’s break down the regions.

Round of 32:

A few teams hope to spoil the Big Blue Nation party, though.

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Wisconsin had never been a No. 1 seed before. Their reward? A rugged West Region that could feature two rematches with Pac-12 teams from the 2014 NCAA Tournament.

Elsewhere, Arkansas is a surprising No. 5 seed, but gets stellar mid-major Wofford as its first-round opponent; North Carolina is under-seeded as a No. 4 and looks to have a strong chance of making the Sweet Sixteen; No. 7 seed VCU could trouble Arizona in the second round; and No. 3 Baylor has a rather straightforward path to the second weekend.

This year, it all starts with Kentucky, the tournament’s overall No.1 seed as the nation’s only undefeated team. The Wildcats will be the top seed in the Midwest Region, as they continue their quest to become college basketball’s first unblemished champion since Indiana achieved the feat in 1976. That journey will begin on Friday in Louisville, when John Calipari’s team faces the winner of a First Four game between 16 seeds Hampton and Manhattan.

Perhaps the tournament’s most dangerous No. 2 seed, Pac-12 regular season and tournament champion Arizona, will also make its run to the Final Four from the West Region. No. 3 seed Baylor and No. 4 seed North Carolina will also present formidable competition out West.

Kentucky, Villanova, Wisconsin and Duke will be the four No. 1 seeds in the 2015 NCAA Tournament, the selection committee announced Sunday.

Kentucky became the first major conference team to finish an undefeated regular season since the 1975-76 Indiana squad, and was an easy pick for the tournament’s top seed. After non-conference wins over Kansas, Texas, North Carolina and Louisville, the Wildcats tore through their SEC schedule without a blemish. A menacing defensive force, Kentucky has nine potential NBA players on its roster with two potential top-five picks in the upcoming draft.

The 2015 NCAA Tournament bracket is out, and the Duke Blue Devils, with wins over three teams on the No. 2 seed line, are the No. 1 seed in the South Region, which terminates in regional play in Houston at NRG Arena.

Duke earned its No. 1 seed in the South Region by running the table through a fantastic non-conference schedule, downing Wisconsin and Michigan State away from Cameron Indoor Stadium, and though Mike Krzyzewski’s team didn’t win either the ACC regular season title or the ACC Tournament, they chalked up enough wins (two over North Carolina, one over Virginia, Notre Dame, and Louisville) in ACC play to deserve a place on the top line.

The region’s No. 2 seed is Virginia, widely considered a contender for the final No. 1 seed but ultimately left a bit short by losing two of its last three games.

Below are the first-round matchups for the East Region.

1 Kentucky

16 Manhattan/Hampton

There were 13 ties and 14 lead changes in this thriller at the end of regulation, but the Badgers, perhaps ticketed for a No. 1 seed as a result of their victory, made sure there wouldn’t be one in overtime.

After winning the NCAA title a year ago, UConn needed a win over SMU to make the NCAA Tournament and defend its crown. The Huskies struggled to a 20-14 record this season, but almost found enough magic to win their conference tournament. Instead, SMU spoiled the party.

SMU led 33-19 at the break and were up by as many as 17 in the second half. But UConn kept within striking distance, mostly thanks to the play of Rodney Purvis, and they kept on chipping away at the SMU lead. They pulled to within eight with 7:27 to play, then pulled to within six with less than six to go. It was even a five-point game with just over two minutes to play and it seemed the Huskies were going to pull off a crazy victory again, but SMU held on down the stretch to win.

Seriously, here it is.

We warned you.

Fellow ACC programs Duke and Virginia should also be No. 1 seeds, with several teams scrambling for the final top seed. Farther down the seedings, will bubble teams like Texas, Miami, and Ole Miss be able to squeeze into the field, or will they fall just short? Make sure you tune in from wherever you are to find out.

Start time: 6 p.m. ET