#1 Overall Seed Virginia Leads This Year’s NCAA Tournament
This year’s NCAA Tournament is set and the top-ranked Virginia Cavaliers (31-2) lead the way. We know that just because a team has the top spot doesn’t mean that they will be the last team standing. Last the #1 overall seed was Villanova, but North Carolina won the National Championship.
This year, Virginia would like to be that team that starts the Big Dance at #1 and end up as the National Champions. The Cavaliers certainly earned their spot finishing the season at the top of the Associate Press (AP) and Coaches’ Polls. UVA also won the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) regular season and tournament titles. ACC Coach of the year Tony Bennett’s Orange and Blue have the country’s best defense led by ACC Defensive Player of the Year Isaiah Wilkins and Sixth Man of the year De’Andre Hunter.
Here are the other top number one Seeds:
- Villanova (30-4) finished the regular season 2nd overall in the AP Poll. They also spent part of the season at #1 before Virginia took over. HC Jay Wright continues his success with this talented team. G Jalen Brunson led the way with 19.4 PPG. Villanova were also the Big East Tournament Champions.
- Kansas (27-7) finished as this year’s Big 12 Regular Season and Tournament Champions. Led by Bill Self, this team is always in the mix come tournament time. They are led by Big 12 Player of the Year Devonte’ Graham.
- Xavier (28-5) finished as this year’s Big East Regular Season Champions. They are probably the surprise #1 seed as many thought it would be either Michigan, Duke or Michigan State.
In the 68-team Tournament, there are Thirty-two automatic bids by winning their conference tournaments and 36 teams at-large bids. It also includes the ‘First Four’ games: Syracuse vs. Arizona St., St. Bonaventure vs. UCLA, North Carolina Central vs. Texas Southern and LIU Brooklyn vs. Radford.
The first two game winners will advance to play 2 of the 6th-seed teams (Florida, TCU) as the 11th Seed and the final two winners will play two of the #1 seeds (Villanova, Xavier) as 16th seeds.
The Final Four will be held at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas.
The ACC once again leads with 9 teams in this year’s Tournament, followed by 8 from the Southern Eastern Conference (SEC), 7 from the Big 12 and 6 from the Big East.
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