The NCAA Tournament selection committee offered an early “preview” of the top 16 seeds for the Big Dance on Saturday. Though the picture will immediately begin to change as new results roll in, the exercise provided some interesting fodder for college basketball fans to digest.
Among the biggest takeaways from the bracket preview was just how stacked the Midwest was. Again, this will all shift before Selection Sunday on March 15, but it was shocking to see a single region containing No. 1 overall seed Michigan, No. 6 overall seed Houston and No. 9 overall seed Florida.
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The sight underscored the challenges the selection committee faces while adhering to NCAA bracketing principles in the era of conference consolidation.
All three rate as top-6 teams at KenPom, and our expert panel unanimously projected that the Cougars would be a No. 1 seed in the bracket preview. Three members of our six-person panel also had Florida as a No. 2 seed.
Not only was Houston not a No. 1 seed, it also was not the first No. 2 seed in the bracket preview. That distinction belonged to UConn. Subsequently, official bracketing principles led the committee down a path that resulted in a stacked Midwest Regional.
Official NCAA Tournament early seeds
Check out the full field of 68 at the CBS Sports Bracketology hub.
Let’s dive in on how the selection committee likely arrived there as they met to rehearse the process that will eventually lead to the creation of the real 68-team bracket. Here are two major need-to-knows that will set the table:
—The committee seeks to separate the first four teams from the same conference into different regions, which is why No. 2 seeds Purdue and Illinois weren’t placed with Michigan in the Midwest.
—Since UConn slotted as the best-ranked No. 2 seed, the Huskies would not have been permitted to play in the same region as the best-ranked No. 1 seed.
As a result, the committee likely determined — with the help of its software that flags those issues — that sending Houston to the Midwest was unavoidable.
What about Florida?
Once the committee started bracketing the No. 3 seeds, it naturally placed the best-ranked No. 3 seed (Florida) in the same region as the No. 1 overall seed (Michigan) in order to follow the established “s-curve” format.
No official “flags” would have appeared for that decision since Florida (SEC), Houston (Big 12) and Michigan (Big Ten) each play in different conferences. Moving on, the second No. 3 seed, Kansas (Big 12), would have slotted in to the East region below Duke (ACC) and Illinois (Big Ten) with no conference separation issues.
Fellow No. 3 seed Nebraska (Big Ten) would naturally have gone to the West. But since Purdue (Big Ten) was already there on the No. 2 seed line, it seems the Cornhuskers were deemed a better fit for the South alongside Iowa State (Big 12) and UConn (Big East).
This is likely why Gonzaga ended up in the West, despite the fact that the s-curve would have sent the Bulldogs to the South as the worst-ranked No. 3 seed.
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When it came to bracketing the No. 4 seeds, there was already a Big Ten team and a Big 12 team in every region, which meant there was no choice but to place Michigan State and Texas Tech in regions with conference foes.
With the Big Ten and Big 12 well-positioned to claim a hefty chunk of the best seeds in the 2026 NCAA Tournament, these are the real issues the selection committee will likely navigate. The leagues combined to produce 10 of the 16 squads in the bracket preview.
Pursuing balance
While the preview’s Midwest is obviously stacked, the potential competitive imbalance was technically slender enough that it passed NCAA protocols. Here’s what the committee’s official principles state:
“After the top four seed lines have been assigned, the committee will review the relative strengths of the regions by adding the “true seed” numbers in each region to determine if any severe numerical imbalance exists. Preferably, no more than six points should separate the lowest and highest total.”
If you tally the “true” seeds of the top four teams from the “toughest” region (Midwest), you get Michigan (1) + Houston (6) + Florida (9) + Virginia (16) = 32.
If you tally the “true” seeds of the top four teams from the “weakest” region (West), you get Arizona (3) + Purdue (8) + Gonzaga (12) + Michigan State (14) = 37.
That falls within a range of six points, which means it met the committee’s threshold for what is considered balance.
Selection committee chair Keith Gill revealed during the bracket preview that the committee initially placed No. 14 overall seed Michigan State in the Midwest and Virginia in the West. That would have triggered a flag notifying the committee about competitive imbalance. In that scenario, the difference between the cumulative true seed values of the top four teams in the Midwest and West was greater than six. Thus it led to a swap of Virginia and Michigan State.
Down the bracket
If you thought that was complicated, it was only the start.
Amid conference consolidation and the proliferation of nonconference matchups between high-major schools, the committee will face additional challenges in avoiding regular season rematches as it brackets a full field in the weeks ahead.
While the committee will still be strident in avoiding first round rematches, some second round rematches may be unavoidable. That’s why the CBS Sports Bracketology model occasionally produces second round rematches between teams that have already played.
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When multiple teams on a seed line are from the same conference, there are times when the only alternative to avoiding a potential conference rematch is to create a potential nonconference rematch.
NCAA bracketing principles permit games between conference teams in the second round, so long as the teams in question played each other just once before the NCAA Tournament. For conference teams that met twice prior to the NCAA Tournament, principles state they should not meet prior to the Sweet 16. If the teams played three times, bracketing principles state they should not play before the Elite Eight.
With regard to rematches of nonconference games, principles state that they should be avoided “in the First Four and first round.” The committee will also “attempt to avoid” nonconference rematches in the second round. But the committee prioritizes keeping teams on their natural seed line over changing their seed line for the sake of avoiding a rematch.
