The NCAA Tournament for 2014 is here and predictions on the full bracket have Final Four projections along with first and second round selections for the college basketball games and it comes after the top four number one seeds were announced with the Florida Gators as the first overall seed over Arizona, Wichita State and Virginia.
A number of teams were fuming about their seeds after the selections were made and others were mad that the Midwest region was made stacked with teams like Wichita State, Michigan, Duke and Louisville, but others were pleased that the Shockers would get tested after going undefeated in the Missouri Valley Conference and through the regular season. The team is the first to come into the tournament undefeated since UNLV did it back in the 90's and Louisville comes in looking to repeat as national champions.
Louisville won the American Athletic Conference title, while Duke lost to Virginia in the ACC tournament title game and now they come in looking to go on a run in what could be the only tourney for Jabari Parker. SMU didn't make it in and UCLA won the Pac-12 and was a four seed, while Michigan State and Louisville, also conference winners, ended up as number four seeds and that should make for some interesting matchups coming in the first set of games. The Cavaliers made it in as a number one after winning both the regular season and tournament ACC titles and Arizona stayed at number one despite falling to the Bruins in the Pac-12 title game in the tournament.
SMU was left out and so were a number of quality teams, while Oklahoma State comes in with Marcus Smart as a number nine seed and Saint Joe's is a 10 after winning the Atlantic 10 title. Kansas is coming in as a two seed after a strong season despite losing one of their best players to injury in Joel Embiid. The team could end up playing New Mexico in the third round and Arizona is looking at a possible matchup with Gonzaga and Creighton is in that part of the bracket as well. The First Four matchups start on Tuesday and has Mount St. Mary's taking on Albany, while North Carolina State and Xavier are playing and they are 12 seeds battling to get in as well. Wednesday has the next two and that is Texas Southern playing against Cal Poly, while Tennessee and Iowa are playing on the next day.
Some of the other matchups coming in the tournament includes the South region with Florida taking on the winner of that first game, while UCLA will play against Tulsa and Colorado has a matchup with Pitt. Syracuse comes into things as a number three seed and they play against Western Michigan, while Kansas plays against Eastern Kentucky and Ohio State matches up in the state with Dayton and VCU plays against SF Austin. Arizona and Gonzaga are on the same side, as Oklahoma plays against North Dakota State and another solid matchup is Oregon and BYU and the champion this year likely will be from the Midwest bracket.
Check here for the full tournament schedule or for a full bracket from ESPN.com and HERE for predictions for the final four and the tournament with picks.