All the 8-9 games are intriguing, especially Illinois– Arkansas. Kentucky will face Providence and its star Bryce Hopkins, who transferred from the Wildcats last year.

Penn State, which nearly won the Big Ten tournament, is a high-level 7-10 game. Bennett Most intriguing first-round matchups? The committee has shown it time and time again: Play good teams out of your conference, or suffer the consequences. Rutgers also got punished for a bad out-of-league schedule, missing the field despite wins at Purdue, Northwestern, Penn State and against Indiana. The Aggies, though, played a bad nonconference schedule, which cost them a bid last year and knocked them a couple seed lines lower this time around. 1 overall seed Alabama in the regular-season finale. 7 seed despite playing like one of the best teams in the country in the final few months, including a win over No. Brian Bennett, The Athletic ’s bracketologist Who got snubbed? Nevada making the field as the fourth team from the Mountain West was also a surprise, as most bracketologists had them out. The Cougars could potentially face Auburn in Birmingham in the second round - the committee flubbed big time on that one - then either Xavier or Indiana in the Sweet 16 and possibly Big 12 tournament champ Texas, which could have been a No. To be fair, Houston didn’t get a substantially easier path. It’s a rough way to treat the defending champs. That’s if the Jayhawks can get by teams like UConn and Saint Mary’s in the top half of the bracket. To top it off, Kansas got sent out West, where it could have to contend with UCLA and Gonzaga in their time zone in a potential Elite Eight showdown.

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