The toughest challenge facing this year’s NCAA tournament selection committee may not be choosing between bubble teams or seeding the field from 1 to 68.
An unprecedented number of bids from a single conference could make the bracketing process more difficult than ever before.
Only six days before Selection Sunday, the SEC remains likely to eclipse the record 11 NCAA tournament bids that the 2011 Big East secured. Nine of 16 SEC men’s basketball programs are locks to make the field. Vanderbilt, Georgia and Arkansas also should sneak in. Oklahoma and Texas project as bubble teams who can bolster their cases by winning a game or two at this week’s SEC tournament.
The more NCAA tournament bids that the SEC receives, the tougher it will be for the selection committee to adhere to its bracketing principles. Opening-round matchups between teams from the same conference are flatly forbidden. Those matchups are also avoided whenever possible in the round of 32 and the Sweet 16.
As recently as last year, NCAA bracketing principles mandated that conference foes who played each other twice or more before Selection Sunday could not meet before the Sweet 16 and conference foes who faced each other three times could not meet before the Elite Eight. Teams from the same conference could on
#SECs #potential #record #number #NCAA #tourney #bids #headache #selection #committee
