Louisville:
1. Louisville (ACC)
16. Southern (SWAC)
8. South Dakota State
9. UCLA
Ames:
5. Michigan State
12. Boise State (Mountain West)
4. Iowa State
13. Missouri State (Missouri Valley)
Other teams, take note: A good way to go from 9-9 to into the tournament field is to win six straight games while knocking off Arizona State and Utah on the road in the process. That’s what UCLA did and that’s why the Bruins are in the field. Not that it’ll be easy to stay there. They have six games left, and their next five are Stanford, Cal, at Oregon, at Oregon State, and Utah. Good luck with that.
Corvallis:
6. Drake
11. Rice (CUSA)
3. Oregon State
14. UC Davis (Big West)
Starkville:
7. Texas
10. Michigan
2. Mississippi State (SEC)
15. Radford (Big South)
Mississippi State got the nod as the final 1 seed in the committee reveal, but UConn’s win over South Carolina caused me to put the Huskies back where I had them right before. It’s close either way. South Carolina was another quad 1 win for UConn, which makes the Huskies 5-2 in such games, compared to 5-1 for the Gamecocks. The difference: UConn still has that win at Notre Dame.