Valentine’s Day will be even more dramatic after the NCAA announced the date for this season’s first Top 16 reveal.

The top 16 seeds will be revealed on College GameDay on Saturday night before the South Carolina-LSU game. South Carolina is expected to be a one seed, while LSU’s seed is less certain. 

The date of the second top 16 reveal hasn’t been announced, but it is normally in the last week of February. Selection Sunday is on March 15.

For the last six seasons, the NCAA selection committee has held two top 16 reveals ahead of Selection Sunday (formerly Selection Monday).

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The reveals are considered a snapshot in time as if the season ended today. They are not rankings that the committee builds on for future rankings.

Teams are seeded on an approximate S-curve, so the committee tries to pair the strongest 1-seed (1st overall) with the weakest 2-seed (8th overall). However, other bracketing rules (conference teams can’t play each other in the first two rounds) prevent a true S-curve. 

The selection committee considers 12 criteria: Bad Losses, Common Opponents, Competitive in Losses, Early Performance Versus Late Performance, Head-To-Head, Observable Component, Overall Record, Regional Rankings, Significant Wins, Strength of Schedule, NET, and WAB. 

WAB, which stands for Wins Above Bubble, is a new component for the women’s selection committee, but has already been used by the men’s committee. According to the NCAA, WAB “is results-based and goes beyond strength of schedule to show how a team actually did against that schedule.”

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WAB applies specifically to bubble teams, so it doesn’t mean much for South Carolina. South Carolina has been a one seed for each of the past five tournaments.

The First Four games will be played on March 18-19. The first round is March 20-21, and the second round is March 22-23. All games are at the sites of the top 16 seeds.

For the third consecutive season, there are two regional sites. Fort Worth and Sacramento are this year’s hosts. The Sweet 16 is on March 27-28, and the Elite Eight is on March 29-30. The Final Four runs from April 3 to April 5 in Phoenix.