UConn earns No. 1 overall seed in NCAA Tournament: Full March Madness bracket reaction and analysis

The real 2024 NCAA Tournament bracket will be released over the course of the next hour. What will it look like?

The Athletic's Brian Bennett has been analyzing the resumes all week. Here's his final bracket.

No. 1 seeds: Connecticut, Houston, Purdue, North Carolina

Last four in: Michigan State, Florida Atlantic, Colorado, St. John's

First four out: Oklahoma, Virginia, Indiana State, Seton Hall

A profile of the Connecticut Huskies, our projected No. 1 overall seed entering the selection show:

Strengths: UConn is the most complete team this season. You want guards? The Huskies have Tristen Newton, Cam Spencer and Stephon Castle. You want bigs? Donovan Clingan is arguably the nation’s best defensive center. UConn goes seven deep on the bench before there are any questions or concerns. The scary part is that the Huskies are just now peaking. Clingan and Castle both battled injuries earlier this year. Since Jan. 17 — when Clingan returned to the lineup — UConn ranks top three in offensive and defensive efficiency.

Weaknesses: There is a path to beating the Huskies. It starts with getting Clingan in foul trouble. Backup center Samson Johnson is good, but he’s not good enough to make up for the fact that UConn’s perimeter defense can be an issue. The Huskies don’t have many playmakers who can create independently when the offense breaks down. Dan Hurley’s system is intricate and elaborate, but if an opponent can run them off of the 3-point line (like Creighton did) or successfully switch everything 1-through-4 (like Kansas and Seton Hall did), they have a chance.

Outlook: UConn is the best team in college basketball. The Huskies are peaking at the right time. They have an All-America point guard in Newton who is flanked by an athletic, slashing playmaker in Castle and one of the toughest, savviest players in the country in Spencer. Karaban is as good a floor-spacer as you’ll find at the four anywhere, and Cling Kong is going to be a lottery pick for a reason. UConn will be the favorite in every game they play in the Big Dance. — Rob Dauster, Field of 68

The Illinois Fighting Illini are Big Ten tournament champions.

Illinois defeated Wisconsin 93-87 in the Big Ten tournament title game Sunday in Minneapolis.

It is the Fighting Illini's first conference tournament win since 2021 and fourth as a program.

Terrance Shannon Jr. led Illinois in scoring with 34 points on 8-of-15 shooting from the floor.

NC State and Oregon winning their way into the field Saturday means that Virginia and Oklahoma are out.

It’s not so simple that the committee simply will replace UVa with the Wolfpack in an ACC tradeoff. Virginia was our last at-large on Saturday morning, and the Cavaliers did lose head-to-head to NC State on Friday, so it seems fair that they’re the first ones to get the boot. We then considered a de facto Pac-12 switcheroo of Oregon and Colorado, since the Buffaloes made our field for the first time after winning in the Pac-12 semis on Friday.

But all this chaos forced us to dive deep into the resumes again, and … what’s impressive about the Sooners? No bad losses, sure, but they’re 4-12 in Quad 1 and 3-6 on the road. They beat Iowa State and BYU, but both were at home. And beyond that, there’s not a single win against a team in the field. And then there’s the matter of the No. 271 nonconference SOS. Add up the lack of wins, bad schedule, poor road performance and a No. 44 KenPom ranking, and this suddenly doesn’t look like a NCAA Tournament team. Especially as the ninth team out of the Big 12.

Record: 22-11, 12-8 ACC

NET rating: 40

KenPom rating: 40

Quad 1 record: 4-6

Quad 2 record: 5-3

Quad 3 and 4 record: 13-2

Oh, Pitt. The Panthers came so close, winning 12 of their last 15 entering Friday, including road games at Duke and Virginia and twice over Wake Forest. But a 72-65 loss to No. 1 seed North Carolina in the ACC semifinals on Friday probably will put Pittsburgh on the wrong side of the cut line. Just barely. The predictive metrics are solid and the performance metrics have improved, with a resume average of 46.5 entering Friday. But of the respectable four Q1 wins, only one — at Duke — is in that top tier, and the nonconference strength of schedule is abysmal enough to turn off the committee when the bubble margins are so slim. I’m not ready to stick a fork in the Panthers just yet, so it’s off to the “waiting game” — where the odds are better than Wake Forest’s — but still rather long.

The UAB Blazers won the AAC tournament over Temple 85-69.

It will be UAB's first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2022.

Dan Monson rode shotgun while his wife, Darci, steered the car down I-15 through the deserts that separate Las Vegas from California. Outside his window, the barren wasteland stretched on to the horizon, offering a view to everywhere and nowhere all at once. The irony of that view was not lost on Monson, who suddenly finds himself on a similar road. He is headed to college basketball paradise, to the first round of the NCAA Tournament. He also is no longer employed by the school he will represent once he gets there.

Long Beach State and Monson parted ways after 17 years on Monday; six days later the Beach completed an improbable three-wins-in-three-days run to capture the Big West tournament and the automatic bid that comes with it. “I guess you could say I’m in the middle of nowhere in a lot of respects,” Monson says as he and Darci cut through Barstow, Calif., racing home to prep for the selection show party they’ll host for the players in a few hours. “I’m in a desert in my car and in my career.”

It is a bizarre and yet somehow oddly fitting arc for Monson.

Twenty-five years ago, Monson was the hotshot coach after launching a tiny Jesuit school into the national basketball conversation. In 1999, Gonzaga rolled to the Elite Eight, the first step in what would eventually become one of the most impressive building projects in all of college athletics. Monson, though, wasn’t there to see the seeds he planted blossom. Lured into the Icarus draw of college basketball potential, he jumped for a bigger job, taking over a Minnesota team mired in a massive academic scandal. He thought it made sense, figured the run he took at Gonzaga could easily be recreated with the better resources Minnesota offered.

He managed to scrub the Gophers’ image, but not find the success the school wanted. He resigned in 2007, at the start of his eighth season, while Mark Few and Gonzaga made their ninth consecutive NCAA Tournament appearance (the streak will reach its 25th season this week). He wound up at Long Beach State which, like Minnesota, needed a clean-up job. The NCAA hit the Beach with three years’ probation for infractions committed by Monson’s predecessor. He found a good life there, stretching his stay to 17 years, a veritable lifetime in a profession that typically has the shelf life of a browning banana.

But nothing lasts forever in college sports. Two years ago, then-athletic director Andy Fee talked about a contract extension, but then Fee left for a position at the University of Washington in August 2022. His replacement, Bobby Smitheran, came aboard this August, while Monson’s contract was nearing its end.

After an 18-9 start, the Beach lost its last five games of the regular season, limping into the conference tournament at 18-14. After the final loss, to UC Davis on March 9, Monson texted Smitheran to set up a meeting. He understood the program might need a new voice, and recognized perhaps a change would do him good, too. He offered to resign after the tournament, but Smitheran said he preferred it happen immediately. Monson said he didn’t want to quit on his team, so they agreed Monson would coach them through the conference tourney, but announce the decision immediately.

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Record: 23-10, 13-7 ACC

NET rating: 54

KenPom rating: 68

Quad 1 record: 2-7

Quad 2 record: 8-3

Quad 3 and 4 record: 13-0

Virginia avoided a nervy few days of the waiting game with a dramatic overtime win against Boston College on Thursday but couldn’t repeat the formula on Friday, losing to NC State in OT. The Hoos are a question mark — good performance metrics, meh predictive metrics, 2-7 in Q1 — and currently project to be right on the edge. It will be tough for the committee to justify an at-large spot with just two Q1 wins, which is why UVA will be watching Sunday’s selection show with bated breath.

STORRS, Conn. — It is 1 p.m. on a dismal January afternoon and, aside from a few managers, Gampel Pavilion is empty. The Connecticut players have finished reviewing film but have yet to shuffle in from the practice facility across the street. Dan Hurley stands a few steps behind halfcourt. He’s wearing gray sweats, a hoodie, a UConn beanie and a pair of reflector sunglasses. He would like it noted that he wore the sunglasses “way before Coach Prime.’’

Hurley starts launching halfcourt shots, cursing under his breath when the first few attempts clank off the backboard or, worse, airball short of the basket entirely. The Huskies stream in, clomping down the stairs to the court, and Hurley, still in his getup, keeps shooting.

Finally, the ball swishes through the net and Hurley shouts, to no one in particular and everyone on hand, “Who’s the king of two in a row?” Ever obedient, star center Donovan Clingan yells back, “You are, Coach.”

Hurley never swishes back-to-back shots. That doesn’t mean he can’t be king.

It has been 17 years since a college basketball team has won consecutive national championships, the pursuit of back-to-back coronations becoming increasingly elusive as the sport dynamics have shifted. Not only has no team matched Florida’s two-year run, no defending champion has so much as carried the No. 1 ranking into February since the Gators.

Until now. Until UConn. A year after dusting NCAA Tournament opponents by an average of 20 points per game en route to the 2023 title, the Huskies are potentially, and frighteningly, even more capable.

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Auburn has won six straight, now 27 total, 26 by double digits, and rank No. 10 in offensive efficiency, No. 4 in defensive efficiency, No. 1 in eFG% defense, No. 3 in block percentage, No. 9 in non-steal TO%, No. 10 in assist%. They check a LOT of boxes.

What's Illinois going to do with itself, not being down double-digits at halftime of a Big Ten tournament game?

It's been a tightly contested championship game with Wisconsin at the Target Center on Sunday, featuring six lead changes and a 41-40 score in favor of the second-seeded Illini.

In fact, the teams have made the same amount of shots from the field (14) and the same amount of free throws (nine), while its stars are locked in a duel: Illinois guard Terrence Shannon Jr. has 15 first-half points...eclipsed only by the 16 posted by the Badgers' A.J. Storr.

Wisconsin has one sizable edge, with 14 second-chance points, a number likely to create much consternation in the opposing locker room. But Illinois has ridden consecutive second-half offensive detonations to get to this point.

And even though the Badgers' offense has picked up steam in Minneapolis, the pace of scoring probably favors the Illini.

BOCA RATON, Fla. — Dusty May and his assistants carry plates of lasagna to the coaches office on a recent Thursday night. They gather around a conference table to celebrate a win in what’s become a tradition. “Our favorite food,” May says, pausing as assistant Todd Abernathy swings open the refrigerator door, then finishes his buddy’s sentence, “is free.”

The coaches belly up to a conference table and rehash the night’s festivities. Abernathy is required to share what happened to him at UTSA earlier this season. He went to change pregame and realized the slacks he thought he’d packed were shorts. He scrambled to find a pair of pants. Then May found out. This was too good. Abernathy was wearing those shorts. Boss’s orders. The Owls won that night in overtime.

These moments make it feel like not a lot has changed at FAU. May still works out of an office that backs up to a janitor’s closet. Half the time it sounds like a construction zone. “Dental chair,” he says, as some sort of grinding roars on the other side of the wall. Across the parking lot from Baldwin Arena, the players work out in a revamped weight room that used to belong to football. The football team has a state-of-the-art facility down the street that looks straight out of the Power 5. Basketball snuck in there during Christmas break so they could lift together. Before that, they lifted in four different groups in what looks like a closet on the second level of the arena, where a yoga studio used to be.

The Owls still operate like a startup tech company, looking for creative ways to thrive, but a lot has changed. After Florida Atlantic made its miraculous run to the 2023 Final Four, Charles Barkley called it the greatest story in the history of college basketball. “You’ve got Texas Western!” May says. “Obviously, it’s embellished.” But it portended what would come next. Attention. Expectations. Fame. During a 20-game win streak last season, the Owls couldn’t fill their arena. Now, students line up hours before tipoff to get in and there’s tailgating in the parking lot.

This season was supposed to be the fairytale sequel. With transfer portal poachers circling with the lure of NIL dollars, May convinced every eligible player to return. Which he knew would actually be harder than if a few players had bolted.

“(It’d be) much easier for all of us,” he says. “Much safer. Much less risk. There’s a risk for everybody to come back and be expected to be perfect.”

They haven’t been perfect. Outsiders might even label them a slight disappointment. The Owls opened the year ranked No. 10 in the AP poll — and enter Sunday as a projected No. 9 seed in the NCAA Tournament.

Pull back, and it’s the second-best season in school history. “And there’s not even a close (third)!” assistant coach Kyle Church says.

But perspective is hard to find in the face of expectations. Even when they were handed the script before it happened.

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Wisconsin band members who chanted "no means no" at Illinois guard Terrence Shannon Jr. were told by a Big Ten official to stop during the league's tournament championship game Sunday.

Prosecutors in Douglas County, Kan., charged Shannon, the Illini's leading scorer, with rape in early December. After an arrest warrant was issued, Illinois suspended the fifth-year senior from all team activities. Shannon then successfully sued the university for an injunction against the suspension and he returned to action after missing six games.

He was voted to the All-Big Ten first team announced on March 12.

Shannon stepped to the free-throw line at the 17:07 mark of the first half Sunday, at which point Wisconsin band members began the "no means no" chant. Soon after, two officials approached the band and told them to cease the chant.

Asked to explain the protocol behind the shutdown, a Big Ten official responded: "Are we seriously going to argue about this now?" before declining further comment.

When Shannon shot free throws at both the 6:09 and four-minute marks of the first half, Wisconsin fans in the 100 level behind the basket continued the "no means no" chant.

Bruce Pearl knows his father is with him and his team in spirit.