Men’s NCAA Tournament bracket: SEC sets record with 14 teams as Auburn, Florida earn No. 1 seeds

Now in the SEC it just means more NCAA Tournament teams than any conference has ever had before.

Auburn, Duke, Houston and Florida received No. 1 seeds to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament on Selection Sunday as the SEC secured multiple top seeds for the first time in 45 years and set a record with 14 teams in the field.

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“I really thought that the 14 were justified, but you never know, so until you hear it, you’re never going to be overconfident,” SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey told The Athletic on Sunday night. “And I wasn’t surprised. I was just pleased with the recognition.”

Two-time defending national champion UConn (23-10) will try to three-peat as a No. 8 seed in the West Region, facing an opening game against Oklahoma, with Florida looming in the second round.

Auburn is a No. 1 seed for just the second time in program history, joining the 1999 team, and the top seed overall in this year’s bracket. Coach Bruce Pearl’s Tigers, led by national player of the year contender Johni Broome, will begin their NCAA Tournament on Thursday in Lexington, the home of the SEC’s Kentucky Wildcats, in search of the program’s first national title. Auburn will face the winner of a First Four matchup between No. 16 seeds Alabama State and Saint Francis (Pa.).

While Auburn (28-5) won the SEC regular-season title, it enters March Madness having lost three of four, all to ranked opponents from a conference that can now claim to be the strongest and deepest in college basketball history. The SEC’s football dominance has been dented the past two seasons with consecutive Big Ten championships, but the hoops have never been better in the Deep South. The SEC went 59-19 against the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12 and Big East.

The newly expanded 16-team SEC broke the record of 11 bids by the 16-team Big East in 2011 by three.

That plethora of SEC teams made building a bracket that would avoid intraconference matchups in the early rounds a challenge for the NCAA’s selection committee.

“We didn’t move anybody off of a seed line, but we really had to move people around to minimize the conflict early,” committee chairman and North Carolina athletic director Bubba Cunningham said on CBS’ bracket reveal show. “We made sure we only had at most four (SEC) teams in one region, so that we could spread them out the best we could.”

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It was nine years ago when the SEC put only three teams in the men’s tournament for the third time in four seasons. Sankey made it a priority to help the conference improve, hiring former Big East Commissioner Mike Tranghese as an advisor. The result was an increased commitment to men’s basketball leaguewide.

“We’ve seen (new) arenas in Auburn and Ole Miss and even redos at other places, Kentucky and Florida and Georgia. Practice facilities. But all 16 of our coaches have been to the NCAA Tournament. Six have been to the Final Fours. That’s … a credit to our athletic directors,” Sankey said. “It really goes back to our campuses wanting to be as special in men’s basketball, as we are in women’s basketball, football, baseball and softball.”

Duke (31-3) is a No. 1 seed for the 15th time, matching Kansas for second-most all time behind North Carolina. The Tar Heels’ NCAA worthiness this season has been much discussed, but coach Hubert Davis’ team slipped into this field as a No. 11 seed slated to face San Diego State on Wednesday in Dayton, Ohio, in the First Four.

Selection protocol required Cunningham to recuse himself for discussion about North Carolina (22-13), which played one of the country’s toughest nonconference schedules but won just one game against opponents considered Quad 1 by the committee.

Sun Belt Conference Commissioner Keith Gill, the committee’s vice chairman, was brought on to explain North Carolina’s inclusion during the selection show.

Gill said when the committee took its final vote on at-large teams Saturday night, North Carolina was the last team in but with a contingency for Sunday’s American Athletic Conference championship between UAB and Memphis.

“If UAB had won, then Memphis was going to be in the tournament. UAB would have been in the tournament (with an automatic bid), and North Carolina would have been the first team out,” Gill said.

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West Virginia of the Big 12 ended up being the first team out, followed by Indiana and Ohio State from the Big Ten and Boise State, which lost the Mountain West title game to Colorado State. The Rams were this season’s lone bid-stealer, essentially taking Boise State’s place in the field.

The 18-team ACC’s four bids were the conference’s fewest since 2013.

The top seed for Duke is its first since 2019 and first under coach Jon Scheyer, who replaced five-time national champion Mike Krzyzewski three seasons ago.

Duke begins play close to home in Raleigh, N.C., in the East Region on Friday, with the status of star freshman Cooper Flagg uncertain after he sprained his left ankle in the first half of the Blue Devils’ first ACC tournament game. Duke went on to win the championship without Flagg, who is expected to be available for the NCAA Tournament.

Coach Kelvin Sampson has Big 12 champion Houston (30-4) on the No. 1 line for the third straight season, looking for its first Final Four appearance since 2021 and first NCAA championship ever. The Cougars open Midwest Region play Thursday in Wichita, Kansas, against SIU Edwardsville.

Florida (30-4) locked up its No. 1 in the West Region by winning the SEC tournament Sunday against Tennessee. The Gators are a top seed for the third time, and the first since 2014 under coach Billy Donovan, who led Florida to its only two NCAA championships in 2006 and 2007. The last and only time the SEC had multiple top seeds was 1980 when LSU and Kentucky did it. The SEC’s last NCAA championship came in 2012 by Kentucky.

Donovan’s old coach, Rick Pitino, is back in the NCAA Tournament, this time with St. John’s (30-4). The Big East champions are the No. 2 seed in the West. The Johnies get trash-can powered Omaha of the Summit League in the first round in Providence, R.I., with the winner of preseason No. 1 Kansas-Arkansas waiting in a potential round-two game.

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That’s a possible Pitino-John Calipari matchup of longtime adversaries if St. John’s and Arkansas can advance.

The 72-year-old Pitino is the first coach to take six schools to the NCAA Tournament: Boston University, Providence, Kentucky, Louisville, Iona and now St. John’s.

The SEC also placed two teams on the No. 2 line with Alabama joining Duke in the East Region and Tennessee behind Houston in the Midwest.

SEC newbie Texas was one of the last four teams to get in, despite a 6-12 conference record. The Longhorns will face Xavier in a First Four game Wednesday.

That same 6-12 record was also good enough for Oklahoma to get an NCAA bid in its first season in the SEC thanks to impressive nonconference victories against Michigan, Arizona and Louisville.

The now 18-team Big Ten earned the second-most bids with eight.

Only seven conferences received multiple bids and in an even greater sign of the consolidation in the super conference era: the Big Ten and SEC got 20 at-large bids and the rest of the country got 17.

The Big 12 received seven bids. The Big East received five bids, the Mountain West got four and the West Coast Conference had two with Gonzaga and St. Mary’s.

The Zags extended their consecutive streak of NCAA appearances to 26, second-best active streak in the country behind Michigan State’s 27. The Spartans are the No. 2 seed in the South Region behind Auburn. Gonzaga is the ninth seed in the Midwest and will face Georgia in the first round, with top-seed Houston likely awaiting the winner.

(Photo: Stew Milne / Getty Images)

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