It's Christmas for college basketball fans.
Multimadness has officially arrived. Selection Sunday is here.
It was a fascinating and fantastic season to crown a new champion after Connecticut repeated its last April.
On a Sunday evening, we have a bracket. All 68 teams are competing for their final position to cut nets in San Antonio.
Post Zach Braziller looks forward to the announcement and prepares for the big day.
No. 1 seed
Automatics: Start with Auburn, Duke, and Houston. They feel like rock as a top seed.
Duke and Houston reached the conference championship game after winning the regular season title.
Auburn owns an outrageous 16 quad one win. The Tigers should be the overall top seed.
The Big 12 is significantly stronger than the ACC and, as a result, he has a much better resume, so he leaned towards Houston at No. 2 in Duke.
The fourth No. 1 is a slightly question mark.
Florida is believed to have an edge thanks to Auburn and fellow first contenders, the high-end road victory in Alabama.
You can have a discussion about Tennessee. Tennessee can get a shot if 11 Quad 1 wins in the SEC semi-finals on Saturday, knocking out Auburn and defeating Florida in the SEC title game.
bubble
As always, the most intense debate takes place on the cut line.
Last March, Big East was a big loser, with only three teams landing in the tournament.
Seton Hall, Providence and St. John's were excluded for six bid thefts. This is a team that I created just to win the conference tournament.
The big story this March is North Carolina.
The Tar Heels were a huge disappointment after returning star guard RJ Davis and adding five-star freshmen Ian Jackson and Drake Powell. They won only once in 13 Quad 1 game.
Xavier is another interesting team. They closed the regular season by winning six straight games before infusing Marquette with a 14-point lead in the Big East Tournament semi-finals.
Like North Carolina, Xavier has a poor quad 1 record (1-9), but wins the predicted tournament teams of Connecticut, Clayton and Marquette.
Indiana has three quad wins over North Carolina and Xavier, but it's an overall 4-13 mark.
Texas have far more Quad 1 wins (7) than the aforementioned three, but they have five Quad 2 losses.
North Carolina has only one subquad 1 defeat, Xavier has two defeats and Indiana has one defeat.
Next comes the issue of bidders taking incredible places.
If Memphis doesn't win the AAC crown on Sunday, it's one spot less.
Boise is another team to watch after losing the title game of the Mountain West Tournament to Colorado. Boise State has achieved quality victories in Clemson, New Mexico, San Diego and St. Mary's, but two subquad two losses reduces the resume.
The bottom line is that there is an unfortunate team and coach on a Sunday night.
Local people
Outside of St. John's, it was clearly a down season in the area.
Seton Hall set a program record for defeat in the season with 25, and Rutgers didn't get close to the dance despite having two top-five NBA draft picks with Ace Bailey and Dylan Harper.
Meanwhile, 30-4 Johnny enjoys his best regular season of 25 years and is probably seeing the second species. They own top 10 resume metrics, 16-4 in quad 1 and 2 games.
What's hoping is that they start with Providence on their first weekend as the best seeded team in the Northeast.
But staying close to home for the second weekend – the eastern region is in Newark, Prudential Centre – may not be realistic.
For one, Red Storm is projected as the final second seed, making it difficult to see the committee giving No. 1 seed a geographical disadvantage in the eight potential matches of the Elite 8.
In a more likely scenario, St. John's will be second in the West (San Francisco) or South (Atlanta).
