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The story of march madness The numbers look a lot like the story of the regular season that preceded it: a healthy cross-section of very good teams, few dominant ones and no strong consensus on who is the best bet to score goals in the Final Four in Arizona.
Defending champion Connecticut is a slight favorite to repeat, according to FanDuel Sports Betting, followed by Houston and Purdue. Barring something unexpected, all three teams will take first place when the brackets are released Sunday night. Tennessee and North Carolina are in the fight for fourth place, along with Arizona and maybe even Iowa State, which on Saturday houston crushed 69-41 in the Big 12 Tournament championship.
The NCAA Tournament begins Tuesday with the First Four, followed by 32 first round matches on Thursday and Friday. The Final Four is scheduled for Glendale, Arizona, April 6-8.
As always, the most interesting discussions will be about the shrinking bubble and who will be among the last to enter the field of 68 teams, 32 of which automatically qualify by winning their postseason conference tournaments.
A handful of conference tournament upsets, including The state of North Carolina wins the Atlantic coastFlorida Atlantic losing to American Athletic and Oregon winning the Pac-12 – meant that highly qualified teams would swallow up more of the remaining 34 spots. He made the wait more dangerous for teams like Indiana State, Virginia, Seton Hall and St. John’s, while Sunday became a much more difficult journey for the committee that chooses the brackets.
“This is the fifth year I’ve done this; I’ve never enjoyed Saturday night because of how difficult it is to select the final teams,” said Iowa State athletic director Jamie Pollard, who is part of the committee. said on social media. “This year is more difficult than all the previous years combined. “It is heartbreaking to know that, unfortunately, some very good teams will not be dancing.”
Several weeks ago, Gonzaga was considered a bubble team, but a streak of nine wins in 10 games elevated the Zags, and although lost the conference tournament final to Saint Mary’s, will enter the field for the 25th consecutive year. That would be one less than Michigan State, which is trying to reach its nation-leading 26th straight tournament, if it makes it out of the bubble.
As for the business of really filling those parentheses — good luck.
Last year, Purdue entered the tournament as a favorite only to become the second No. 1 seed in history to be knocked out in the first round. The Final Four consisted of UConn, Miami, Florida Atlantic and San Diego State, a group selected only by six of approximately 3.6 million in the NCAA bracket challenge. None of those teams were ranked better than fourth.
Some believe this is the end of a sport that has been disrupted by roster turmoil across the board. The emergence of athlete compensation agreements and more liberal transfer rules has unleashed an era in which coaches must worry as much about building teams in the span of months as they do about developing programs over years.
So be it.
“We have another chance to compete for a championship,” FAU coach Dusty May said. “And when every team in the country starts its season, and usually one season starts almost as soon as the other one ends, your goal is to get to the NCAA tournament. There are, whatever, 360 teams now and 68 are participating. We are confident that we will be one of those teams that will have the opportunity to compete for the most important championship in our game, in our sport, college basketball. “
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AP basketball writer Tim Reynolds contributed to this report.
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AP March Madness Bracket: and coverage: