The 2018 NCAA tournament selection show starts Sunday at 6 p.m. ET, and teams across the country will be learning their March Madness fates. As always, conference tournament champions get automatic bids, but there are, per usual, those teams on the bubble that may or not make it into the dance.
Four storylines to watch during the 2018 NCAA tournament selection show
There’s a lot to learn on Sunday night.
David Wallace-USA TODAY Sports
Before the selections get announced, let’s take a look at five of the biggest storylines heading into Sunday night:
Who will be the No. 1 seeds?
The No. 1 overall seed will likely go to the Virginia Cavaliers, who are 28-2 on the season, and just defeated UNC in the ACC tournament Championship.
The rest of the No. 1 seeds will likely go to the Big East champions Villanova, Big 12 champs Kansas, and Xavier, which is 28-5, and lost to Providence in the conference tournament semifinal.
The Duke Blue Devils could have had a shot at a No. 1 seed, but Duke’s ACC tournament semifinal loss to UNC likely made that go away.
What will the committee do with Oklahoma and Arizona State?
Both of these teams looked primed to be favored in this year’s tournament, but end of the season losses cost both teams greatly. The Sooners lost to Oklahoma State in the opener of the Big 12 tournament, which marked OU’s 11th defeat in 15 games, and the Sooners have lost eight in its past 10 games, too.
Like Oklahoma, Arizona State finished 20-11 with numerous late-season losses, including losing five out of the last six games. The Sun Devils do have signature wins against Kansas and Xavier, but finishing 8-11 in what’s considered a down year for the PAC-12 doesn’t do them any favors.
“I felt like we were in the tournament coming into this game regardless of the outcome,” Arizona State coach Bobby Hurley said after the Pac-12 tournament loss to Colorado via ESPN. “We were the last undefeated team in college basketball. We went and played high-level opponents on the road and on neutrals.”
Whose bid got snatched at the last second?
Davidson won the A-10 tournament championship to earn an NCAA tourney bid, and it looks like it might have successfully knocked out Syracuse too, but there are other teams in-play here, too:
Now, based upon my morning bubble watch, that team should be the Syracuse Orange, since they were the last team in. However, since I am an overanalyzer and have been spending my afternoon looking at teams 1 through 68 (and beyond) yet again, I’ve dropped the Arizona State Sun Devils behind the Orange, and therefore out. This is thanks in large part to their dreadful finish, even if its no longer an official metric. Not only did the Sun Devils dropped five of their last six, they only defeated 8-24 California in that span, and while the Orange only won three of their last seven, which isn’t great, at least two of those wins came against tournament teams — Miami (on the road) and Clemson.
I just wonder if Arizona State’s two best wins, over projected top seeds Xavier and Kansas, will hold up, as their struggles in in a below-average Pac-12 indicated serious inconsistency, not the excellence those victories displayed.
What about the mid-major teams?
St. Mary’s and Middle Tennessee are the two mid-major teams who will be nervous on Sunday St. Mary’s was a preseason top-25 team that slipped up against Washington State and Georgia in non-conference, then suffered a tough loss to BYU in the WCC semis. They are 28-5, 16-2 and did beat Gonzaga once, but lack the quality wins the committee typically looks for.
Middle Tennessee has won an NCAA tournament game each of the last two seasons and might have had its best overall team this year, winning Conference-USA in the regular season by finishing 24-7. But the Blue Raiders fell to Southern Miss in the conference tournament, putting their resume under scrutiny as Selection Sunday approaches.
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