{"id":705021,"date":"2026-04-08T10:29:22","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T10:29:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/705021\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T10:29:22","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T10:29:22","slug":"ncaa-tournament-bracket-watch-florida-keeps-the-last-no-1-seed-and-other-last-calls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/705021\/","title":{"rendered":"NCAA Tournament Bracket Watch: Florida keeps the last No. 1 seed and other last calls"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor\u2019s note: This article is part of the Bracket Central<\/a> series, an inside look at the run-up to the men\u2019s & women\u2019s NCAA Tournaments, along with analysis and picks during the tournaments.<\/p>\n

For the first of these final guesses: Florida retains the fourth No. 1 seed. Technically, it\u2019s not retaining \u2014 the NCAA Tournament selection committee declared the top 16 seeds on Feb. 21 and is about to release a full bracket, and everything else is guessing \u2014 but Florida had a strong claim to it entering the weekend.<\/p>\n

Then Vanderbilt crushed the Gators, 91-74, in Saturday\u2019s SEC semifinals. Connecticut, the projected fourth No. 1 for most of the season and a team that beat Florida in December, tipped off with a rare opportunity to move the needle in this year\u2019s Big East, against St. John\u2019s in the title game. Houston, fresh off profile-enhancing wins over BYU and Kansas, got a shot at undisputed No. 1 seed Arizona. Movement was possible.<\/p>\n

Until UConn lost 72-52<\/a> and Houston lost 79-74<\/a>. I\u2019ll stick with Florida. It\u2019s close, but the predictive metrics favor the Gators slightly over Houston and decisively over UConn. Also, I\u2019ve got Houston as the No. 5 overall seed in this bracket, the No. 2 seed in the South Region, which means playing in Houston if it makes the second weekend.<\/p>\n

Other final guesses of note:<\/p>\n

\u2022 The St. John\u2019s win over UConn jumps Rick Pitino\u2019s team to the 4 line, dropping Kansas to a No. 5 seed.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Miami (Ohio) is in Dayton, making the MAC a two-bid league \u2014 Akron beat Toledo in a thriller Saturday to take the automatic bid \u2014 and reinforcing the importance of the Wins Above Bubble metric. It has the RedHawks comfortably in the field even after their loss to UMass. Predictive metrics tell us Miami should be nowhere near it. To me, that spells Dayton and the First Four.<\/p>\n

\u2022 The committee talks itself out of Auburn. San Diego State could have made it easy by beating Utah State in the Mountain West final and claiming a second spot for that league while bumping a bubble team. But I\u2019m going with SMU for the final spot, even though the numbers slightly favor Auburn. SMU is close enough that the committee will pass on making history with the first at-large team with 16 losses.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Two significant seeding jumps are possible based on Sunday\u2019s results. Yes, that\u2019s right, Sunday results affecting seeding \u2014 I believe it actually happens and recently explained why<\/a>. Well, maybe we\u2019ll get a chance to test that belief. Vanderbilt got a massive profile boost with the Florida win, but I can\u2019t quite put the Commodores past Gonzaga for the final No. 3 seed. With a win over Arkansas, Vanderbilt should supplant Gonzaga as a No. 3 seed. And if Purdue beats Michigan in the Big Ten title game, that should propel the Boilermakers past Michigan State for the final No. 2 seed.<\/p>\n

As mentioned, we are looking at two MAC bids, and we might be looking at three for the Atlantic 10, after Dayton\u2019s incredible finish and win over Saint Louis. This bracket projects VCU to beat Dayton in the title game. But if Dayton wins, I\u2019m guessing VCU gets an at-large bid and SMU gets bounced.<\/p>\n

Last four byeslast four inFirst four outnext four out<\/p>\n

Texas A&M<\/p>\n

NC State<\/p>\n

Auburn<\/p>\n

Indiana<\/p>\n

UCF<\/p>\n

Miami (Ohio)<\/p>\n

Oklahoma<\/p>\n

Virginia Tech<\/p>\n

Missouri<\/p>\n

Texas<\/p>\n

San Diego State<\/p>\n

Cincinnati<\/p>\n

Santa Clara<\/p>\n

SMU<\/p>\n

New Mexico<\/p>\n

Seton Hall<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

SEC<\/p>\n

10<\/p>\n

Big Ten <\/p>\n

9<\/p>\n

ACC<\/p>\n

8<\/p>\n

Big 12<\/p>\n

8<\/p>\n

Big East<\/p>\n

3<\/p>\n

WCC<\/p>\n

3<\/p>\n

Atlantic 10<\/p>\n

2<\/p>\n

MAC<\/p>\n

2<\/p>\n

The Bracket Central series is sponsored by E*Trade from Morgan Stanley. The Athletic maintains full editorial independence. Sponsors have no control over or input into the reporting or editing process and do not review stories before publication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Editor\u2019s note: This article is part of the Bracket Central series, an inside look at the run-up to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":705022,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[18893,7998,1982,598,1398,7,7150,217,6133,691,950,6721,25826,18909,15593,2811,11971,35883,7367,3755,7368,3730,20707,3075,35145,1984,354,59646,14569,3491,1043,88293,231,772,1544,8905,13492,1770,9449,12513,34561,55955,11668,44209,218,9346,65462,1797,1153,2398,1640,8858,4262,31481,25823,20705,25678,6722,1774,74846,27570],"class_list":{"0":"post-705021","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-akron-zips","9":"tag-alabama-crimson-tide","10":"tag-arizona-wildcats","11":"tag-arkansas-razorbacks","12":"tag-auburn-tigers","13":"tag-basketball","14":"tag-clemson-tigers","15":"tag-college-basketball","16":"tag-connecticut-huskies","17":"tag-duke-blue-devils","18":"tag-florida-gators","19":"tag-georgia-bulldogs","20":"tag-hawaii-rainbow-warriors","21":"tag-high-point-panthers","22":"tag-hofstra-pride","23":"tag-houston-cougars","24":"tag-howard-bison","25":"tag-idaho-vandals","26":"tag-illinois-fighting-illini","27":"tag-iowa-hawkeyes","28":"tag-iowa-state-cyclones","29":"tag-kansas-jayhawks","30":"tag-kennesaw-state-owls","31":"tag-kentucky-wildcats","32":"tag-lehigh-mountain-hawks","33":"tag-louisville-cardinals","34":"tag-mens-college-basketball","35":"tag-miami-oh-redhawks","36":"tag-miami-hurricanes","37":"tag-michigan-state-spartans","38":"tag-michigan-wolverines","39":"tag-missouri-tige","40":"tag-ncaa","41":"tag-ncaa-basketball","42":"tag-ncaab","43":"tag-nebraska-cornhuskers","44":"tag-north-carolina-state-wolfpack","45":"tag-north-carolina-tar-heels","46":"tag-ohio-state-buckeyes","47":"tag-purdue-boilermakers","48":"tag-saint-louis-billikens","49":"tag-siena-saints","50":"tag-south-florida-bulls","51":"tag-southern-mississippi-golden-eagles","52":"tag-st-johns-red-storm","53":"tag-tcu-horned-frogs","54":"tag-tennessee-state-tigers","55":"tag-tennessee-volunteers","56":"tag-texas-am-aggies","57":"tag-texas-longhorns","58":"tag-texas-tech-red-raiders","59":"tag-ucf-knights","60":"tag-ucla-bruins","61":"tag-umbc-retrievers","62":"tag-utah-state-aggies","63":"tag-vanderbilt-commodores","64":"tag-vcu-rams","65":"tag-villanova-wildcats","66":"tag-virginia-cavaliers","67":"tag-wright-state-raiders","68":"tag-yale-bulldogs"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=705021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705021\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/705022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=705021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=705021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=705021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}