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Joe Lunardi, Senior Writer, ESPN.com
The NCAA men’s basketball committee could not be more clear: Teams, not conferences, are what it considers in selecting and seeding the NCAA tournament field. Put another way, conference affiliation is not a factor in any selection committee deliberations.
As far as we can see, the committee is telling the truth. But, the reality is everyone from a conference’s commissioners to its most passionate fans lives in a world of bragging rights. Not only are big dollars at stake in the form of NCAA revenue units, but who doesn’t want their league to be considered the nation’s best?
All of which is extra relevant heading into the 2024-25 season, a year incorporating major conference realignment. The Big Ten and ACC have grown to 18 members; the Big 12 and SEC are at 16 schools apiece. The Pac-12 as we know it is gone, along with its 4.3 NCAA bids per season. Many are wondering where those bids will go.
Past committee practices notwithstanding, overall conference strength will inevitably be part of the answer. So, let’s take a look at how the top five conferences stand in terms of projected NCAA tournament bids and average seed as a new season gets underway.
Projected bids: 10
Average seed: 7.6
How can a conference tied for the largest number of projected bids be last on our list? It’s simple, really. For over two decades, the Big Ten has succeeded mainly at delivering quantity over quality.
How else does one describe doing less with more? Since COVID-19, the Big Ten has been dead last among all major conferences in advancing teams to the Sweet 16 (11.4%). No power conference has gotten more NCAA bids — and none have gone as long without a national championship (we’re coming up on the quarter-century anniversary of the last Big Ten team to win it).
It says here the Big Ten should have added Missouri to its recent expanded ways. No league in America has more of a need to “Show Me.”
Projected bids: 6
Average seed: 7.0
The numbers above, should they actually materialize in March, would be a clear disappointment for an 18-team power conference. But I’m at least partially sold on the ACC’s superior NCAA tournament performance as an antidote to declining selection and seeding numbers — and why they don’t fall into last place on this list.
But the conference will need to back that history up in the regular season, to exceed its current bid projection. The league realistically has just four NCAA locks (Duke, North Carolina, Wake Forest and Clemson) but there’s considerable wiggle room with at least double that number of genuine bubble teams.
Better nonconference scheduling, combined with the end of Louisville‘s ignominious one-year run as a Quad Four member, should go a long way toward restoring order. That, and the aforementioned 51.7% success rate at advancing teams to the second weekend, have to mean something.
Projected bids: 5
Average seed: 4.6
The suddenly smallish Big East is significantly buoyed by the presence of two-time defending national champion UConn. It also boasts Creighton, a legitimate threat to the Huskies, and a reemerging power in the Rick Pitino-led St. John’s.
Don’t be misled by the league’s three bids a year ago. The Red Storm and NIT champion Seton Hall were both late scratches from the NCAA field due to the presence of multiple bid thieves in other conferences.
The Big East will be back to its normal complement of tourney teams as soon as this coming March. Both Villanova and Providence fell just outside our projections in the final preseason edition of Bracketology. The conference is that close to bragging about up to seven NCAA entries.
Projected bids: 10
Average seed: 5.1
When Kentucky is picked to finish eighth in a league, that conference as a whole is probably pretty good. It also seems fair to say the SEC’s long-desired pursuit of being labeled a “basketball league” is now complete.
If you don’t believe me, take a close look at Alabama. When the hoops season tips off on Nov. 4, the Crimson Tide will have a better projected seed in the NCAA men’s tournament bracket than in the expanded college football playoff. Also remember that just two years ago, Alabama was the No. 1 overall seed in the country. In men’s basketball.
Read that again, and think how far the SEC has come from successive three-bid seasons as recently as 10 years ago. It’s literally a whole new ballgame.
Projected bids: 9
Average seed: 4.1
The expanding Big 12 led the way last season with eight bids. Houston was a new member and snagged both the regular-season title and a No. 1 NCAA seed. It’s turned out to be a very rare case in which an expanded league did not suffer a metrics decline.
But will the Big 12 continue trending up without Oklahoma and Texas? Arizona is a significant addition for 2024-25, comparable to Houston a year ago, so the onus will be on fellow newcomers Arizona State, Colorado and Utah to equal what BYU, Cincinnati and UCF added last season.
Our preseason Bracketology currently places nine Big 12 teams in the projected NCAA field. The total trails the Big Ten and SEC, but the average seed 4.1 is far and away the best of all major conferences heading into the new year.
It’s that level of elite teams, including two projected No. 1 seeds, that puts the Big 12 at the top of the rankings.