SAN ANTONIO - The NCAA released the men’s Division I basketball brackets for the upcoming NCAA Tournament this evening at 6pm. As expected, UNC has won a #1 seed in the NCAA East Region and will play in Raleigh on Friday.

By the strength of their schedule based on the RTI formula, the ACC teams had the toughest schedules out of all the conferences this year. However, only four ACC teams made it into the tournament: UNC, Duke, Clemson, and Miami. Duke was ranked #2 in the West, Clemson #5 in the Midwest, and Miami #7 in the South. Virginia Tech, which was “on the bubble” did not make it into the tournament.

In terms of teams represented in the tournament, the other conferences included the Big East (8), Big 12 (6), Pac-10 (6), SEC (6), ACC (4), Big Ten (4), Atlantic 10 (3), West Coast (3), Sun Belt (2), and Mountain West (2).

The NCAA has announced that UNC will be number one in the East and will first play on Friday night at the RBC Center in Raleigh. The Tarheels will play against the #16 seed, which will be the winner of the Mt. St. Mary’s / Coppin State play-in game on Tuesday night.

Other #1 seeds include Kansas, UCLA, and Memphis. SCROLL DOWN TO SEE FULL BRACKET GRAPHIC.

EAST:
#1 NORTH CAROLINA
#2 TENNESSEE
#3 LOUISVILLE
#4 WASHINGTON STATE
Number two in the East will be the Tennessee Volunteers who play American University’s team. The Volunteers could be a huge obstacle for Carolina to get to the Final Four. Also in the East are Indiana University and Notre Dame. Indiana University will be seeded as #8 and will play #9 seeded Arkansas in the East.

MIDWEST:
1. KANSAS
2. GEORGETOWN
3. WISCONSIN
4. VANDERBILT
5. CLEMSON
Kansas University will be the #1 seed in the Midwest regionals as they play #16 Portland State. Also in the Midwest, #5 seeded Clemson will play #12 Villanova in Tampa, Florida.

SOUTH:
1. MEMPHIS
2. TEXAS
3. STANFORD
4. PITTSBURGH
7. MIAMI
Memphis will be the #1 seed in the South regionals as thei team plays #16 Texas Arlington. Miami at #7 will play St. Mary’s, seeded at #10.

WEST:
1. UCLA
2. DUKE
3. XAVIER
4. CONNECTICUT
In the West Conference, Duke University is ranked #2 and will play #15 Belmont in Washington DC on Thursday. UCLA is ranked #1 and will play #16 Mississippi Valley State.

OTHER NON-ACC NC TEAMS:
Another North Carolina team that has made it to the “big dance” is #10 Davidson College who will play #7 Gonzaga in Raleigh.

GAME SCHEDULE:

The March Madness begins on Tuesday with the opening round game between Coppin State and Mt. St. Mary’s, but other teams will start playing Thursday March 20th or Friday March 21st.

The regional finals will be held in Charlotte, Detroit, Houston, and Phoenix. The Final Four in San Antonio, Texas on April 5th and the final game will be held on Monday April 7th.

A commenter is setting up a bracket for TBL readers, and we’ll know more tomorrow morning. Early musings:

- The Midwest is brutal (Kansas, Wisconsin, Georgetown)
- We missed just one team: Villanova. Had Illinois State instead
- Butler got shafted with a 7 seed. Not to mention its opponent is South Alabama, which will have a decided home-court advantage. Butler should have been a 5-6 seed
- Hate the idea of two mid-majors squaring off, like Gonzaga and Davidson
- Man, UCLA has a bloody cake walk to the Final Four
- Indiana vs. UNC in the second round. Love it. Assuming the slumping but dangerous Hoosiers get past athletic Arkansas
- Wisconsin gets a No. 3, and Duke gets a No. 2? What’

s that about?

Best first round matchup:
USC vs. Kansas St. (mostly because of Mayo vs. Beasley)

Favorite 2nd round potential matchups:
Arizona vs. Duke
Indiana vs. UNC
Notre Dame vs. Washington St.
Drake vs. Connecticut

Early Final Four picks that will be DEFINITELY changed before Thursday at noon:
West - UCLA (easiest road; Connecticut the only threat)
South - Stanford (gulp; not sure if the Cardinal beat Marquette)
East - Louisville (couple of landmines for UNC up top, and none for the Cardinals)
Midwest - Georgetown (probably will go back to Kansas, though)

Bracketology, the science behind the compilation of NCAA Brackets.

A bracketologist’s credibility is judged on how many teams he predicts correctly being in the tournament and the average difference between the bracketologist’s projected seed and the actual seed assigned by the NCAA Selection Committee.

His credibility and popularity can go through the roof if he manages to hit a super contest. But who are bracketologists and what is bracketology?

Using the NCAA basketball tournament selection process, the RPI, and the seeding and balancing process, a “bracketologist” places teams in the tournament in the various regions (East, West, Midwest, and South).

Some bracketologists go as far as placing teams in which “pods” they will play in the first and second rounds. Generally, the lists also show the last four teams in and the first four teams out.

However, these brackets change daily as conference tournaments continue and teams automatically qualify for the tournament.

Tips for filling out your NCAA bracket

Later today, the bracket for the NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament will be released, and college hoops fans around the country will be studying the 65-team field.

I will be one of those people. Only once since I started filling out brackets probably in junior high or high school have I not tried my hand at correctly predicting the tournament games and its overall winner.

Different years I’ve taken different approaches. Some years, it was a matter of just following a gut instinct not thinking too much about the game, but rather responding to my initial feeling about the winner. Other years, I’ve fretted over every game. Trying to get as much information on each team before finally selecting a winner.

Neither resulted in much success. I’ve correctly picked the national champion a grand total of …

twice. Although, one of those occurrences it was when Duke won the national title at the Metrodome over Michigan in 1992 earned me a first-place finish in the pool being run on the third floor of Lee Hall at UW-Whitewater and netted me a cool $27 million. Or was it like 15 bucks, I can’t remember.

Either way, my success rate in NCAA Tournament brackets has been minimal, however, I have learned a few things over the years. Here are some tips that may help:

Have one “State” team in the Final Four. In each of the last four years and six of the last eight, a “State” school as in Michigan State, Ohio State, North Carolina State has made it to the Final Four.

Have two teams from the same conference in the Final Four. Eight of the last nine Final Fours have had two schools from one conference with the exception coming last year.

Don’t pick Florida to win it. Not sure if they’re even going to make the field, but no team has won three straight titles since UCLA capped a run of seven consecutive crowns in 1973.

Think blue. Every year since 1987 there has been at least one school in the Final Four which had blue in a wide range of variations has its main uniform color.

Initials are iffy. UCLA has reached the Final Four the last two years and LSU was there two years ago. But from 1992 until 2005, only once UCLA in 1995 did a school known for its initials reach the Final Four.

No No. 15 seeds advancing. It’s only happened four times since 1991 where a No. 15 seed has knocked off a No. 2 seed, but it has only happened in years ending with an odd number.

Big 12 flops. Be leery of picking highly-seeded Big 12 teams in the first round. Four times since 2001 a Big 12 team seeded fourth or higher has been knocked off in its opening game, including Kansas losing in the first round in both 2005 and 2006.

Think ACC. Since 1979, the Atlantic Coast Conference has never gone three years in a row without getting at least one team to the Final Four. The last two years, though, the ACC has failed to push a team to the Final Four.

Go East for the champ. The last nine years, the NCAA champion has resided in the Eastern time zone.

March Madness is coming.

This is a political blog, but in North Carolina, basketball is politics too, so we’ve invited some statewide candidates to submit their brackets for the upcoming NCAA tournament.

We’ll see next week how you all did.

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