Auburn is the No. 1 overall seed for the NCAA Tournament and headed to the South Region, where coach Bruce Pearl and the Tigers will be trying to seek a little bit of retribution after a first-round ouster at the hands of Yale last season.

Led by SEC player of the year Johni Broome, the Tigers (28-5) spent eight weeks at No. 1 in the AP Top 25 before a late-season slide that left them entering March Madness having dropped three of their last four games — all to tourney teams. That includes a 70-65 loss to Tennessee in the semifinals of the conference tournament over the weekend.

The Tigers, who have not survived the opening week of the NCAA Tournament since going to the Final Final in 2019, will begin their journey against Alabama State or St. Francis (Pa.) on Thursday in Lexington, Kentucky. The regional final is in Atlanta.

“We lost to Alabama, Tennessee and at Texas A&M. Yeah, we’re panicked,” Pearl said sarcastically, when asked about the past couple of weeks. “I can hardly wait ’till next weekend to start playing again."

Auburn was joined in the South on Selection Sunday by second-seeded Michigan State, No. 3 seed Iowa State and some familiar faces: No. 4 seed Texas A&M, which beat the Tigers recently, and the Aggies' first-round opponent ... Yale.

Michigan State will be making its 27th straight NCAA Tournament trip, the longest active streak of any team in the country. The Spartans will open against America East champion Bryant.

"The losing locker room was not good, but it was not bad,” Spartans coach Tom Izzo said after Saturday’s loss Big Ten semifinal loss to Wisconsin. “It was more cheerful and more -- they knew some mistakes they made, and I knew some mistakes I made, and we shared that together and explained why things have to be the way they have to be.”

Now, the Spartans get to rectify those mistakes as they seek their first national championship 25 years after their last.

The biggest surprise in the South may have been the No. 5 seed given to in-state rival Michigan, which beat the Badgers for the Big Ten title on Sunday. Instead, the Wolverines will face a potential NCAA darling in the first round in UC San Diego, which was eligible for the first time after spending a four-year period transitioning from the Division II level.

Schedules matter

North Carolina will play San Diego State in a First Four game after surviving the NCAA bubble. The Tar Heels were 1-12 against Quad 1 opponents but buoyed by their tough strength of schedule and a close loss to Duke in the ACC tourney.

Tar Heels athletic director Bubba Cunningham serves as the selection committee chair, raising conflict-of-interest questions. Under the committee's rules, Cunningham recused himself from any conversations about his school and said “all the policies and procedures were followed." Vice chair and Sun Belt commissioner Keith Gill managed those discussions.

The winner of North Carolina-San Diego State will play sixth-seeded Ole Miss in the first round.

Injury outlook

Iowa State coach T.J. Otzelberger said Sunday that starting guard Keshon Gilbert will miss the NCAA Tournament because of a lingering muscle strain that also kept him out of the Cyclones’ Big 12 quarterfinal loss to BYU. Otzelberger was more optimistic about the status of fellow guard Tamin Lipsey, who missed the game against the Cougars with a groin strain.

“We fully anticipate he’ll be ready to go for our game on Friday,” Otzelberger said.

Turnaround time

Louisville went from 8 wins under Kenny Payne last year to 27-7 and ACC tourney runner-ups in the Cardinals' first season under Pat Kelsey. They earned the No. 8 seed and will open against Creighton, which lost to St. John's in the Big East finals.

Beware the Bulldogs

 

Yale lost just once in the Ivy League and has won 16 of its past 17 games as it tries to replicate its upset of Auburn last year by beating Texas A&M. Then there's the other set of Bulldogs in the South — Bryant, coached by Phil Martelli Jr. — who'd really be springing an upset if they can spoil Michigan State's trip to the tournament.

What's a Triton?

 

UC San Diego was preparing to play in the Division II tourney when it was canceled by the pandemic in 2020. The Tritons — the offspring of Poseidon in Greek mythology — began their move to Division I the following year, but they were ineligible for the big dance until this year, when they went 30-4 and won Big West regular-season and tournament titles.

Creighton

Creighton is headed back to the NCAA Tournament as a No. 9 seed and will face No. 8 Louisville in the first round Thursday in Lexington, Kentucky. The Bluejays (24-10) earned an at-large bid after finishing second in the BIG EAST and reaching the conference tournament final. Led by center Ryan Kalkbrenner and guard Steven Ashworth, Creighton is making its fifth straight NCAA appearance under head coach Greg McDermott. The winner will advance to face either No. 1 seed Auburn or the winner of a First Four matchup.

Omaha

Omaha men's basketball is making its NCAA Tournament debut as a No. 15 seed and will face No. 2 St. John's on Thursday in Providence, Rhode Island. The Mavericks (22-12) secured their first-ever tournament berth after winning the Summit League title. The game will tip off at 8:45 p.m. CT on CBS. The winner will advance to face either No. 7 Kansas or No. 10 Arkansas in the second round.

Beware the 12 seed: Michigan, Memphis among the No. 5 seeds trying to avoid NCAA Tournament curse

UC San Diego coach Eric Olen knew that his team would be good this season.

This good? Maybe not quite.

The Tritons were playing Division II ball just five years ago, when the pandemic shut down its tournament and may have kept his team from winning a national championship. The school began the transition to Division I the following year, and in its first season of NCAA Tournament eligibility, the Tritons punched their ticket by winning the Big West Tournament title.

All of that is reason for rapture in Southern California. And reason for worry in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

The Tritons were rewarded with the No. 12 seed in the South Region, where they will face Big Ten Tournament champion Michigan in one of those testy 5-12 matchups that always seem to bust some brackets early.

“It's been a pretty special season, you know?" said Olen, who took over UC San Diego in 2013, when it was a mediocre DII program. “These guys deserve all the recognition that has come their way. I knew we'd have a good team. I knew we'd be good. But his has been, you know, beyond my expectations of what was possible, to be in this situation, to play at this level for so long this season."

The Tritons have won 15 consecutive games, so they will be taking plenty of momentum into their matchup with Michigan on Thursday in Denver. And lest anyone think they will be intimidated, remember this: They took No. 11 seed San Diego State down to the wire in one of their only four losses this season,

“Teams don't just win 30 games by accident,” said UC San Diego guard Hayden Gray, a finalist for the Naismith Defensive Player of the Year Award. “We're going to go out there with confidence. See if they can stop us.”

It'll be a tall task for the Tritons, literally and figuratively. Michigan will have a huge size advantage in 7-foot-1 center Vladislav Goldin and 7-foot big man Danny Wolf, and coach Dusty May's team is just as hot as UC San Diego. It toppled three straight Top 25 teams in Purdue, Maryland and Wisconsin to cut down the nets at the Big Ten Tournament.

Still, there have been 55 times in which the No. 12 seed triumphed since the NCAA Tournament field expanded in 1985, including twice last year, when James Madison beat Wisconsin and Grand Canyon knocked off Saint Mary's.

“The process doesn't change. It's still going to be the same things up on the board there before the game,” the Tritons' Aniwaniwa Tait-Jones said. “We're just going to go out and do what we do.”

West Region

 

Much like Michigan, Memphis was probably hoping for a much better seed after winning the American Athletic tourney, but it got stuck with the dreaded No. 5 seed and a first-round matchup with Colorado State, the winner of the Mountain West Tournament.

The Tigers, who are led by All-American candidate PJ Haggerty, proved they can beat anyone when they beat NCAA Tournament teams Michigan State, Clemson, Missouri, Ole Miss and UConn. But coach Anfernee Hardaway's crew also showed they can lose to just about anyone, such as Arkansas State and Temple.

“What an incredible story,” said Colorado State coach Niko Medved, whose team will face the Tigers on Friday in Seattle. “This team, the legacy of this team, will live on forever. Just resilience and staying together. Believing in something that’s bigger than yourself and not getting ahead of yourself."

East Region

 

Oregon earned its No. 5 seed by having one of the strangest rollercoaster seasons of any high-major: The Ducks won 12 of their first 13 games, beating Texas A&M and Alabama along the way, then endured a five-game skid in Big Ten play, before running off an eight-game winning streak that ended with a loss to Michigan State in the Big Ten Tournament.

The Ducks now get a game Friday against No. 12 seed Liberty, which won the Conference USA tourney but has not played a single Quad 1 opponent this season.

Midwest Region

 

Will Wade has No. 12 seed McNeese back in the NCAA tourney for a second consecutive year, and its first-round foe should be awfully familiar: Clemson, where Wade worked as a student manager and started his career as a graduate assistant. The No. 5 seed Tigers, who won 18 games in the ACC, will play the Cowboys on Thursday in Providence, Rhode Island.

Va Tech, Saint Joseph's, James Madison and Colorado in Women's Basketball Invitation Tournament

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Virginia Tech, Saint Joseph's, James Madison and Colorado headline the 32-team Women's Basketball Invitation Tournament field that was announced Sunday night.

The four teams just missed out on making the NCAA Tournament.

The NCAA created the 32-team WBIT as part of its response to an independent 2021 gender-equity report that found there were longstanding disparities between men’s and women’s postseason opportunities.

The Final Four of the tournament will once again be played in Hinkle Fieldhouse on the Butler campus. The semifinals are March 31 and the title game April 2. First- and second-round games and quarterfinals will continue to be played at campus sites.

The Missouri Valley Conference had the most teams in the field with Belmont, Drake, Missouri State and Northern Iowa. The ACC had three teams with Boston College and Stanford joining the Hokies. The Big 12 and Big East also had three teams with Arizona, Texas Tech, Marquette, Seton Hall and Villanova all in.