AZ Wildcats Would Get Four Seed, NCAA Says In Tournament Preview

TUCSON, AZ – For the second year in a row, the NCAA's men's basketball tournament selection committee is giving a preview of what March will be like and for the Arizona Wildcats, it's good news. The team would be ranked number four in the West.

The bad news is that number one in their bracket would be Purdue who beat them by 25 points when the teams met in November in the Bahamas.

The other bad news is that southern California has not been good for 20-6 Arizona. They've lost four straight elite eight games.

The committee revealed the top 16 seeds over the weekend and said that Virginia would be number one overall. They will play in Atlanta, which will host the South regional.

The Cavaliers edged out Villanova, which will head to Boston for the East regional, Xavier, which will play in the Midwest regional in Omaha, and Purdue, which will be number one in Los Angeles.

Here's what the top four seeds for the regions looks like:

• South (Atlanta): (1) Virginia, (2) Cincinnati, (3) Michigan St., (4) Tennessee
• East (Boston): (1) Villanova, (2) Duke, (3) Texas Tech, (4) Ohio State
• Midwest (Omaha): (1) Xavier, (2) Auburn, (3) Clemson, (4) Oklahoma
• West (Los Angeles): (1) Purdue, (2) Kansas, (3) North Carolina, (4) Arizona

Here's how they're ranked:

1. Virginia

2. Villanova

3. Xavier

4. Purdue

5. Auburn

6. Kansas

7. Duke

8. Cincinatti

9. Clemson

10. Texas Tech

11. Michigan State

12. North Carolina

13. Tennessee

14. Ohio State

15. Arizona

16. Oklahoma

The chair of the committee, Bruce Rasmussen, says that they originally thought that Villanova would be number one overall. That changed when they lost at home to St. John's and Virginia won on the road at Florida State.

As for how decided where everyone would play, the NCAA says that after they determined the top four, they had to figure the next 12 and whee they would play.

They went seed by seed.

• The committee says that number two seeds can't be in the same regional as the number one overall so Auburn, instead of being able to play in the regional closest to them, would have to go to Omaha.
• Kansas was assigned, initially, to the closest available site, which is Atlanta. That, however, changed later in the bracketing process.
• Duke went to its closest site in Boston, while Cincinnati was originally sent to Los Angeles.

The bracketing for the four No. 3 seeds went as follows:

• Clemson could not go to Atlanta or Boston because fellow ACC members had already been assigned to those regions. That resulted in the Tigers going to Omaha. A fourth ACC team on the No. 3 line, North Carolina, had to be sent to Los Angeles because the committee places the top four teams from a conference in separate regions, if they are on the top four lines.
• Texas Tech was sent to its closest available site (Boston) while Michigan State went to Atlanta.

The committee says that the number four seeds were the easiest with each school getting to go to the regional to which it's closest.

Rasmussen says that nothing is set in stone with about 1,300 games still to be played before the actual selections are announced.

"When the bracket came out last year, 15 of the teams were among the 16 we revealed in February," he said in a statement. "It wouldn’t be surprising to see different results this time.

"There are several teams on the verge of cracking the top 16, and they have plenty of chances to enhance their resume over the next few weeks."

The actual bracket will be unveiled on TBS for the first time ever, at 6 p.m. ET Sunday, March 11.

The tournament tops off two days later.

Photo via Stan Liu/University of Arizona Athletics.