Purdue celebrated being named the No. 1 overall seed by the NCAA Tournament selection committee on Saturday with a 73-69 loss Sunday at Ohio State. As is usual with the Boilermakers, turnovers are the problem when they lose. Purdue has an average turnover margin of -9 in its three losses this season.
UConn is the new No. 1 overall seed, replacing Purdue after defeating Marquette 81-53 on Saturday.
The Huskies and Purdue maintain their tournament berth projections despite the trade on the No. 1 line. UConn is still in the East and the Boilermakers are in the Midwest. The beauty of the current top four seeds is that there is no competition for a preferred location. Teams could finish at the top in any order and still maintain their favorite geographical locations.
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How the committee assesses injuries
The numbers 4 to 6 in the Saturday group took a beating, so there were some shifts here.
At first, it seemed like Auburn might have lost more than one game to Kentucky on Saturday. Jaylin Williams had to be helped off the field with a knee injury. However, reports suggest that Williams will be out for some time but is expected to return at some point this season. Auburn slipped from its No. 4 seed by the committee to No. 5 in Monday's rankings.
As a reminder, the way the selection committee handles roster issues such as injuries, suspensions, etc. puts a little more emphasis than usual on how the team played with the squad they take to the tournament it hardly. All results still count.
Structure of the holder
One thing that's unique about this group is that BYU is in the same pod as Kansas, even though both are in the Big 12. This isn't ideal, but within the group rules it's allowed as they currently only play each other once in the regular season. BYU is always a difficult team to place as the Cougars cannot be scheduled for a game on Sunday. Sometimes their seed needs to be changed to meet this requirement, but that wasn't the case in Monday's round. Seeding changes are a last resort as they affect at least four teams, namely the teams to be changed and their first round opponents.
This time there are no new teams in or out of the group, which hasn't happened much recently.
With four weeks to go we've reached the home stretch of the season and this is the first of the daily bracket updates leading up to Selection Sunday.