(Editor’s note: This article is part of the Bracket Central series, an inside look at the run-up to the men’s & women’s NCAA Tournaments, along with analysis and picks during the tournaments.)
If you’re a team that would like to make the Final Four in April, it would behoove you to not have to play Auburn or Duke along the way. That’s becoming clearer.
It’s so clear, it will be said many times between now and the tournament, inevitably leading to one of them falling to an 8-9 seed in the first weekend — how about Dan Hurley and UConn going all “two rings” on Jon Scheyer’s Blue Devils, as this week’s bracket makes possible? That’s the beauty of this tournament, which needs no tweaks and certainly no expansion. Things like that happen every year.
Still, logic and probability say: Avoid those two. The best way? Be a No. 1 seed. The legit contenders for the other two spots? I count four.
Auburn actually isn’t playing its best basketball of the season right now, but the Tigers have supreme late-game confidence. And they have Johni Broome, whose 31 and 14 ensured Georgia wouldn’t make things too interesting Saturday. Duke did things to Illinois on Saturday at Madison Square Garden, in a 110-67 eyeful that wasn’t as close as the final score, to shush…
