Gonzaga was number one on the NCAA men’s basketball committee on Saturday afternoon, beating the unbeaten Baylor.
The Bulldogs and Bears have been at the top of the rankings since the first week of the season, and they are the last two unbeaten teams left in basketball. They are also the top two teams in the NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET), as well as almost every benchmark. Gonzaga has another quadrant 1 win over Baylor, which is currently giving the Zags the lead.
“To no one’s surprise, these two teams are considered the best of the best,” said Mitch Barnhart, director of athletics at the University of Kentucky and chairman of the committee. “Gonzaga and Baylor have been dominant teams up to this point, and while there is no reason to think it will not continue, the beauty of college basketball is that anything can happen on any given night.”
Barnhart also said the margin at the top is ‘razor-thin’.
Big-ten powers Michigan and the state of Ohio joined Gonzaga and Baylor on the 1-seed line. Another Big Ten team, Illinois, was the leading team on the 2-seed line, followed by Villanova, Alabama and Houston.
The 3-seed line was led by Virginia, with Western Virginia, Tennessee and Oklahoma right behind the Cavaliers.
The top-16 revelations were the four seeds: Iowa, Texas Tech, Texas and Missouri.
There were few surprises, with Wisconsin the only team missing from the top 16 teams that were in ESPN bracketologist Joe Lunardi’s latest team list. In the Badgers’ place in the official bracket was Oklahoma.
Dan Gavitt, senior vice president of the NCAA, told CBS that Florida State and USC are also highly regarded as the top-16.
Gavitt added some notes on the NCAA Tournament Protocol, saying the NCAA is hopeful it can have ‘limited capacity’ for fans.
He was asked about the consequences of a positive test, but said that a positive test “should not eliminate teams from the whole of the tournament, as long as they maintain physical distance and wear masks. The team must be able to continue safely.”
NCAA director of media coordination David Worlock said in a Twitter post that several tournament details have yet to be decided.
“Among the things yet to be determined / announced are the names of the four regions, details of possible attendance and contingency plans in the event that a team has COVID-related issues, before the tournament starts and after March Madness starts,” Worlock wrote.
Selection Sunday is scheduled for March 14, and the first four of the NCAA Tournament take place on March 18.