How North Carolina, Tennessee can still secure a No. 1 seed in 2024 NCAA Tournament

There are three teams in excellent shape to land a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament in Purdue, UConn and Houston. However, the fourth No. 1 seed seems to be up for grabs at this point.

The men’s basketball committee released its top 16 initial rankings recently with those three teams as a No. 1 seed, as well as Arizona. Since then, the Wildcats have dropped a home game to Washington State to fall to 20-6 on the year.

On3’s James Fletcher joined On3’s Andy Staples recently to discuss the possible No. 1 seeds in the NCAA Tournament. Fletcher still has Arizona on the 1 seed line but just barely ahead of North Carolina. He believes UNC is in position to potentially land a top seed.

“I think right now, we just have to go based off what the selection committee told us. And that’s North Carolina,” Fletcher said of who could replace Arizona as a 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. “Because North Carolina hasn’t done anything to disprove that at this point. So I think that North Carolina is probably your fifth team overall at this point, and they’re waiting on their opportunity to jump to the 1 seed line.”

The committee had UNC No. 5 overall and Tennessee No. 6 overall, behind the Wildcats. All three of those teams have five regular season games remaining to try to improve their resume.

Despite losing on Thursday, Arizona is still No. 3 in the NET. Tennessee comes in at No. 6, with UNC at No. 10.

“I think that’s in large part why I kept Arizona as a No. 1 seed, despite the struggles that they had last night,” Fletcher said of the NET rankings. “I think because that North Carolina team, if you look at the analytics, there is still a gap between them and Arizona. Arizona is still one of the top 4 teams in the NET rankings. They still have a really good strength of record, and they’ve got Quad 1 wins.”

As for Tennessee, the Vols have an impressive resume, despite dropping six games. Tennessee has five Quad 1 wins and an opportunity for more with games coming up against Auburn, Alabama and Kentucky.

Arizona, North Carolina and Tennessee appear to be the contenders for the final No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament at this point.

“I’ve got Arizona, North Carolina, and then we’ll move to Tennessee as the No. 6 overall team,” Fletcher said. “They’ve got the most Quad 1 wins in the SEC, despite not being at the top of those conference standings.”