The 2025 NCAA Tournament drama started the moment CBS revealed the first team on Selection Sunday.
Despite losing three of its last four games, Auburn was rewarded with the No. 1 overall seed – ahead of a Duke squad that ranked No. 1 in the country according to the Associated Press, the USA Today coaches poll, the NCAA’s NET rankings, Ken Pomeroy’s industry-leading metric and virtually every other measurement.
While Bruce Pearl’s Tigers (30-4) claimed the top seed in the South Regional, ACC champion Duke (31-3) collected the No. 2 overall seed as the top team in the East. Big 12 champion Houston (30-4) garnered the No. 3 overall seed and the top spot in the Midwest while SEC tournament champ Florida (30-4) claimed the No. 4 overall seed as the top dog in the West.
Which team might cut down the nets April 7 in San Antonio? The percentages say it’ll be either the Tigers, Blue Devils, Cougars or Gators.
Since the NCAA tournament committee started seeding the field in 1979, a No. 1 seed has won 27 of the 45 championships. On the flip side, no more than two No. 1 seeds have reached the Final Four since 2015 – and the 2008 tournament marked the only time the No. 1 seeds comprised the Final Four.
The Blue Devils’ Cooper Flagg, a leading candidate for National Player of the Year, injured his left ankle Thursday in the ACC quarterfinals and sat for the rest of the tourney, but Duke declared Saturday that he’ll be ready when the Blue Devils open play Friday against the winner of the First Four game between American and Mount St. Mary’s.
“He’s doing better,” Duke coach Jon Scheyer said Saturday. “All the imaging came back negative, but he sprained it pretty good.”
Houston’s J’Wan Roberts, a first-team all-Big 12 pick, sprained his right ankle Thursday in the Big 12 quarterfinals, but he warmed up for Saturday’s title-game win over Arizona and is expected to play when the Cougars open Thursday against No. 16 seed SIU-Edwardsville.
Auburn’s rise to the top seed coincided with a landslide for the SEC, which shattered the NCAA tournament record by qualifying 14 of its 16 teams. The Big East set the mark in 2011 with 11 teams, but the SEC swept past that by compiling an impressive 185-23 record (.889) during non-conference play.
With the way the NCAA Tournament committee positioned the brackets, the SEC could claim as many as 11 Sweet 16 spots and all of the Elite Eight slots.
“We spent a lot of time on that (Sunday),” said North Carolina athletic director Bubba Cunningham, the NCAA Tournament committee chair. “We didn’t move anybody off of a seed line, but we really had to move people around (the regionals) to minimize the conflict early.
The Big Ten ranked next with eight qualifiers, though Indiana and Ohio State were among the teams that landed on the wrong side of the bubble. The Big 12 earned seven spots, the Big East received five and the Mountain West and ACC claimed four. The ACC’s North Carolina, despite going 1-12 against Quad 1 opponents, collected the final at-large berth over West Virginia – according to NCAA Tournament committee vice chair Keith Gill.
“Saturday night, we took our final vote and we voted in four teams,” said Gill, noting Cunningham was not in the conference room for any UNC-related discussions. “And we had a contingency vote – and the contingency vote was the last team in the field. It was based on Memphis and UAB (in the American Athletic Conference title game)… if UAB had won, then Memphis was going to be in the tournament, UAB would have been in the tournament and North Carolina would have been the first team out.”
Boise State, which ranked 44th in the NCAA’s predictive NET rankings, joined West Virginia, Indiana and Ohio State on the outside looking in.
Two-time defending champion UConn is a No. 8 seed in the West and faces No. 9 Oklahoma in the first round.
Four schools are making their NCAA Tournament debut: SIU-Edwardsville, Omaha, High Point and UC San Diego. The Cougars and Mavericks were rewarded with first-round games against Houston and Big East champion St. John’s, respectively, while Big South champ High Point earned a No. 13 seed with its 14-game winning streak and faces 2024 NCAA runner-up Purdue.
UC San Diego, a No. 12 seed, won the Big West and made the field in its first season of eligibility. The Tritons take a 15-game winning streak into their first-round matchup with No. 5 seed Michigan.
