Heading into the holiday break last season, Arizona sat at 6-5 with no signature wins on its resume. It was going to need a strong performance in the Big 12 in order to avoid missing out on the NCAA Tournament.
The Wildcats proceeded to tie for 3rd place in the league, reaching the Big 12 Tournament title game. That earned them a No. 4 seed for the NCAA tourney, where they made a third trip to the Sweet 16 in the past four seasons.
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What a difference a year makes.
Arizona (12-0) is off to its best start since 2014-15, ranked No. 1 in the Associated Press poll for three consecutive weeks. The latest NET rankings, one of the main sorting tools used by the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee, have the Wildcats second behind fellow unbeaten Michigan.
Six of Arizona’s wins so far are against Quad 1 or 2 opponents, including five victories against ranked teams. The only other time Arizona had five ranked wins in nonconference play was 1987-88, when it reached the Final Four for the first time in program history.
BracketMatrix.com, which aggregates NCAA tourney projections, has Arizona a unanimous No. 1 seed (along with Michigan). If the Wildcats remain on the 1 line all season, which won’t be an easy task considering the Big 12 includes five other teams in the top 30 of the NET and two more in the top 50, they’ll almost certainly be the top seed in the West Region that will have its regional in San Jose.
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Regardless of what region the UA gets placed in, it almost certainly will begin the tourney in San Diego. As long as the Wildcats get a top 4 seed they should end up playing the first weekend at Viejas Arena, where their 2022 NCAA tourney run began.