How final regular season games impacted the 1-seed race in NCAA Tournament

Selection Sunday is now less than a week away, and there were results across the weekend which impacted the very top of the bracket with several teams shuffling positions in On3’s James Fletcher’s latest bracket projections.

Fletcher joined Andy Staples on the On3 YouTube channel bright and early Monday morning to break down the previous week’s impact on the NCAA Tournament picture, particularly at the very top, where losses from Arizona and Tennessee plus a huge win from North Carolina vastly altered the race for the final 1-seed alongside UConn, Houston and Purdue, who are all 28-3 and stone-cold locks for a No. 1.

On the other hand, Arizona is not a lock and was penciled for the last 1-seed by Fletcher prior to their no good and terrible loss to a 14-17 USC club this weekend.

“Before that Arizona game went the wrong direction, I think we were looking at Arizona returning to the 1-line,” said Fletcher to Staples, also noting that “Tennessee falls back in that second tier right along with North Carolina who had just knocked off Duke earlier in the day.”

With that combination of results, UNC and Tennessee slide ahead of Arizona with the Volunteers’ loss to Kentucky not hurting them nearly as much as Arizona’s while the Tar Heel win is a huge boost.

“Instead, Arizona takes a bad loss, a loss to a Quad 2 opponent who is below .500 in conference play. They now fall below even North Carolina, so now it’s Tennessee in that last 1-seed spot, North Carolina moves up to the top team on the 2-line.”

Unfortunately for Arizona fans, James Fletcher believes the Wildcats likely lost their 1-seed chances no matter what they do in the Pac-12 conference tournament by losing to the Trojans.

“Arizona, they kind of fumbled their opportunity to get back into control. If they won out in that Pac-12 tournament, they probably have a 1-seed. Now, that’s pretty much gone, they’re going to be a 2-seed on Selection Sunday.”

For the Wildcats, it was head-scratching defeats like USC that ultimately sank their ship when it comes to a 1-seed. They finished 15-5 in Pac-12 play but suffered losses to mediocre teams like USC, Oregon State and Stanford that really hurt them. But with wins at Duke, on a neutral court vs. Wisconsin, and then a handful of Quad 1 wins in Pac-12, Arizona is still in good shape for a 2-seed if they don’t drop another clunker in the conference tournament.