3 burning questions on Choice Sunday forward of the NCAA event bracket reveal

One of the best Sunday on the sports activities calendar is upon us, however earlier than this 12 months’s discipline of 68 begins to be introduced at 6 p.m. ET, let’s have a look at the three largest questions heading into the 2025 bracket reveal.

1. Who would be the No. 1 general seed?

School basketball hasn’t had a two-horse race on the high of the game like this since. . .effectively, since final 12 months with UConn and Purdue. However even with the Huskies and Boilermakers — who would in the end sq. off within the 2024 nationwide title recreation — there was no drama so far as which one was going to be the pre-tournament favourite based on the Choice Committee.

That’s not the state of affairs this 12 months with Duke and Auburn.

The circumstances for each of the game’s high canine are nearly equally compelling.

On one hand, there’s Auburn, which has constructed maybe the strongest resume because the NCAA launched the NET Rankings system. The Tigers have a whopping 17 Quadrant-I victories, simply essentially the most of any group within the nation, and essentially the most of any group because the NCAA went to the quadrant system. They’re a mixed 11-0 in video games exterior of Quadrant-I, they performed the hardest schedule in America based on each metric, and so they locked up an outright championship within the hardest league within the sport earlier than the ultimate week of the common season even began.

Auburn additionally, after Saturday’s loss to Tennessee within the SEC event semifinals, has misplaced three of its final 4 video games. The Committee is not presupposed to take latest play into heavier consideration than general resume, however there’s definitely an opportunity that the Tigers taking part in the way in which they did down the stretch and Duke taking part in the way in which it did down the stretch might function form of a de facto tiebreaker.

The case for the Blue Devils is fairly simple. The Blue Devils are the No. 1 group within the nation in each main human polls, they’re No. 1 within the NET, No. 1 on KenPom, No. 1 within the BPI, No. 1 on T-Rank, and No. 1 in nearly every other rating system yow will discover. The freshly topped ACC event champions have misplaced only one recreation since Nov. 26, oh and by the way in which, they beat Auburn head-to-head again on Dec. 4.

Neither head coach was above performing some politicking on Saturday.

For Jon Scheyer, that meant ensuring that everybody on this planet knew that star ahead Cooper Flagg, who sat out the ultimate two video games of the ACC event after struggling an ankle harm in Thursday’s quarterfinal, can be good to go for the Large Dance.

For Bruce Pearl, the messaging was a bit extra direct.

A 12 months in the past, UConn grew to become the primary No. 1 general seed in 11 years to win the nationwide championship. Both Duke or Auburn can have a terrific likelihood at making it two in a row, however just one will get the chance.

2. Simply what number of groups does the SEC get into the sphere?

It’s been a foregone conclusion for weeks, possibly months, that this 12 months’s SEC was going to set a brand new report for essentially the most variety of groups from a single convention in an NCAA event.

The present report is 11 from the Large East again in 2011. The query now isn’t if the SEC goes to interrupt the report, it’s by what number of groups.

It could appear as if 11 groups from the SEC — Auburn, Florida, Tennessee, Alabama, Kentucky, Texas A&M, Ole Miss, Missouri, Mississippi State, Georgia and Oklahoma — are all stone chilly locks to be within the discipline of 68. Three different groups — Arkansas, Vanderbilt and Texas — are firmly on the bubble, with most bracketologists feeling just like the Razorbacks and Commodores shall be within the discipline, however being much less sure in regards to the Longhorns’ prospects.

The report goes to occur. It’s only a matter of whether or not the brand new mark is ready at 12, 13 or 14. Regardless, it’s probably going to be a very long time, if ever, earlier than we see the report matched or surpassed.

3. How a lot will Sunday’s championship video games matter?

The NCAA Match Choice Committee has been everywhere for the final decade relating to the matter of how a lot the video games which might be performed on Sunday are considering for the ultimate bracket.

One 12 months, they’ll say that the bracket is principally set on Saturday night time and a few contingency brackets are created in case a large upset occurs in one of many video games on Sunday. In different years, they’ll dismiss the notion that the Sunday video games are performed too late within the course of for them to regulate on the fly.

How will they deal with this season? Who the hell is aware of?

Perhaps Florida vs. Tennessee is a de facto battle for the fourth No. 1 seed. Perhaps the winner of Maryland vs. Michigan will get a 4-seed and the loser shall be resigned to the 5-line. Perhaps the Committee has already determined that VCU is out if it doesn’t win its A-10 championship recreation in opposition to UAB.

We gained’t know till we see the outcomes and get a bracket hours later.

What we do know is that there’s nonetheless a minimum of one potential bid thief on the market that the Committee should account for.

Memphis is within the discipline. There’s no query about it. UAB just isn’t. The Tigers and Blazers will meet Sunday afternoon for the American Athletic event championship. If UAB prevails, it would completely knock out the group that’s at the moment slated to be the final squad within the discipline of 68.

The drama shall be quick and unrelenting all day on Sunday. And that’s earlier than we get a bracket.