March Madness: Alabama, Houston, Kansas, Purdue are No. 1 seeds

The topoverall seed, Alabama, has been on a roll despite being entangledin amurder case. Another No. 1 seed,defending national champion Kansas, is coming off a blowout lossand has a coach coming out of the hospital. Yet another, Houston,just watched itsbest player go down in aheapwith a scary injury.

Thisyear’sMarch Madnessfrontrunners are anything butperfect, but the presence of these teams and all their questions atthe top of the bracket could make for precisely what the NCAA wantsits tournament to be – a perfectly unpredictable mess.

Most of thedrama in picking this year’s bracket was resolved far beforeSelection Sunday.

Arizona Stateand Nevada made it off the bubble and into the 68-team field.Rutgers and Oklahoma State did not.Purdue, with 7-foot-4 Zach Edeyleading the way,edged out UCLA for the fourth and finalNo. 1 seed.

And in adecision most everyone saw coming, the selectioncommitteeleft North Carolina, last year’snational runner-up, out of the tournament. It made the TarHeels the first team since the bracket expanded to 64 teams in 1985to start the season ranked No. 1 in the Associated Press poll andfinish it by not making the Big Dance.

The team theylost to, Kansas, is trying to become the first back-to-back NCAAchampion since Florida in 2007.

The Jayhawksearned the top seed in the West Region, but only the third overall,behind the Crimson Tide and the Cougars. The Jayhawks are awaitingthe return of coach Bill Self, who went to the hospital last weekcomplaining of chest tightness and concerns with hisbalance.He has been dischargedandis expected back this week.

The head ofthe selection committee, Chris Reynolds, said it took every injury,and every absence, into account.

“It’scertainly something the committee talked about during the course ofthe year, and certainly played a factor in seeding and selection,”said Reynolds, the athletic director at Bradley.

He said thecommittee also did not ignore lopsided losses: Two of Kansas’ sevenLs came in March to Texas, a No. 2 seed, by 16 and 20 points.

“They mark ithow they feel and we’re just going to do what we need to do to getwhere we need to be,” Kansas forward KJ Adams said.

Thetournament begins Tuesday with two First Four games. The fullmadness starts Thursday with 16 first-round games, then 16 more thenext day.

Kansas’ lossto Texas in the Big 12 semifinal Saturday likely playedintoFanDuel Sportsbooksettingthe Jayhawks at 10-1 to win the title, behind both Alabama of theSouth Region (8-1 odds) and the overall favorite, Houston (5-1odds), which would be playing the Final Four in its hometown if itwins the Midwest Region. The semifinals and finals are set for NRGStadium on April 1 and 3.

The Cougarslost their conference title game Sunday, in large part because they werewithout Marcus Sasser,the leading scorer who left theprevious day’s game early after sliding awkwardly and hurting hisgroin.

Purdue likelyfound its way onto the “1” line when it won the program’s secondBig Ten tournament title Sunday, less than 24 hours after UCLA,also dinged-up this season, fell by two to Arizona in the Pac-12title game.

For Alabama,the SEC tournament was a relative breeze – nobody stayed withindouble digits of the Tide -- unlike the past twomonths,which have been met with a nearconstant flow of headlinesabout a former player, DariusMiles, who is accused of capital murder In the Jan. 15 killing of23-year-old Jamea Harris.

“I’m not surewe would have predicted this,” said coach Nate Oats of the Tide,which is a No. 1 seed for the first time. “Being the No. 1 overallseed is great. It says what an unbelievable regular season we’vehad. You’ve still got to go win the games.”

The SEC andBig Ten led the way by placing eight teams each in the 68-teamfield. Duke won the ACC for the 22nd time and was one of five teamsfrom that conference in a relatively weak year.

But thistournament is always about more than big schools with bigpedigrees.

Some teams towatch for include13th-seededIona, coached by the legend, Rick Pitino, who has the Gaels inthe show for the second time in three years – with some peoplewondering if he’ll be heading over to a vacant job at St. John’ssoon. Iona got a brutal draw – a first-round meeting againstfourth-seeded UConn.

There isSouthern Conference champion Furman, back in the tournament for thefirst time since 1980, and MEAC champ Howard, back in the tourneyfor the first time since 1992.

There isKennesaw State,theprogram that went 1-28 in 2019-20 and now finds itself in thebracket.For the rest of the dreamers, there is TexasSouthern – the team that won its conference tournament as a No. 8seed and comes to March Madness at 14-20 for a play-in game againstFairleigh Dickinson.