NCAA Tournament Number 1 Seeds
NCAA Tournament Number 1 seeds
The NCAA selection committee has released the field of 65 for the Men’s Tournament. 2008 National champions Kansas are the number one seed overall with Kentucky, Syracuse and Duke, filling out the other number one seeds.
Three of the four top seeds won their conference tournament but Syracuse suffered an early exit in the Big East but the selection committee felt Syracuse’s resume warranted a number one seed.
Midwest: Kansas Jayhawks (32-2 SU, 14-16-1 ATS)
Bill Self’s squad enters the tournament on a five-game winning streak, beating the spread in four of those. Two of the five SU wins, and two of the four ATS victories, were against top-10 Kansas State, including the Jayhawks’ 72-64 triumph in the Big 12 Championship as 5 ½-point favorites. That helped shoddy ATS trend down the stretch for Kansas backers.
East: Kentucky Wildcats (32-2, 17-15)
The SEC champs also enter the Dance with a stretch of five consecutive straight-up wins. The Wildcats covered just two of those wins, a 12-point win at Georgia on Mar. 3 as eight-point favorites and Saturday’s 74-45 rout of Tennessee.
West: Syracuse Orange (28-4, 19-9)
The losses at Louisville (plus one) at the end of the regular season and then to Georgetown (plus 5½) in the Big East quarters put the Orange into the Dance on a two-game skid. Syracuse was on a four-game win streak SU and ATS before the two defeats.
South: Duke Blue Devils (29-5, 18-14-1)
The gang from Durham will stroll into the tournament having won four straight and 12 of its last 13. Duke, for all of the public effect on its spreads, had a very strong start to the season at the window. The fattened spreads caught up at the end with the Blue Devils cashing just one of their last five, 0-3 ATS in the ACC tournament.
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