(Editor’s note: This is part of the Bracket Central Series, an inside look at the run-up to the men’s and women’s NCAA Tournaments, along with analysis and picks during the tournaments.)

During the season in this space, we often like to begin with a bit of pop culture or history or some other random bit of nonsense unrelated to college basketball. So, uh, is it OK if we just do that for the entirety of this final installment?

Because we’re going to be totally transparent here. For the first time in six years of making mock brackets for The Athletic, we go into Selection Sunday with no earthly idea of what the selection committee is going to do. Oh, sure, there are always small surprises, but for the most part, the field is obvious except for maybe one slot.

Not this year. After one of the wildest Championship Week Saturdays we can remember, which included two power-conference bid thieves and a still-hard-to-believe outcome in the American, we find ourselves utterly confused by the bubble. And whether North Carolina will hold on to that final No. 1 seed or if surging Iowa State will take it. At least we’re not alone:

Been doing this since 2006. It’s never been this hard for the committee, not only because of how close so many of these teams are, but because of the…

Editor’s note: This story addresses mental health and addiction and may be difficult to read or emotionally upsetting. 

AVALON, N.J. — Phil Martelli eases back into his chair and sighs. He has been scrolling through his phone, reading text messages that span a two-year window. It is a one-sided conversation, all black and white from the sender, no blue responses from him.

It is a beautiful sunny day in New Jersey and just a week ago, Martelli and his wife, Judy, enjoyed an idyllic Jersey Shore weekend, their home stuffed with children and grandchildren as the kids’ exuberance ricocheted off the ceilings.

But on this August afternoon it is pin-drop quiet in the house. The kids have left and the mood is heavy as Martelli pages through the texts from a person he always considered part of his family. The messages all follow the same pattern: a desperate request for help, a pressing need for money – to pay the dope man, the bartender, or, to get off the streets and find safety.

Martelli used to answer, even send the money as requested. But then counselors advised him he wasn’t helping; that, in fact, he was hurting. Then the messages stopped, the last one coming more than a year ago now – in April of last year. “I’m really sad” is how it ends.

Martelli is sad, too….

(Editor’s note: Bob Knight died Wednesday at 83.)

About a week before the 1984 Olympics, Bob Knight rode shotgun in a Mustang convertible through the streets of Southern California. The United States men’s basketball coach had his feet up on the dashboard and the seat leaned back.

Pete Newell was behind the wheel. Henry Iba sat scrunched in the back seat. Both former Team USA head coaches had been involved with the 1984 squad since the trials began three months earlier, in April. Newell was a longtime mentor of Knight, practically a father figure to the Indiana coach. Iba’s wife had died a year earlier, and Knight had invited him to the trials to serve as a consultant to the Olympic staff. It was the escape Iba needed.

Behind the Mustang, a bus transported Knight’s team and staff. The 12 players on board had emerged from perhaps the greatest collection of amateur talent the sport had seen. Among the 72 prospects invited to the Olympic trials in Bloomington, Ind., were 37 future first-round NBA Draft picks, 12 future NBA All-Stars and seven future Hall of Famers. The historical implications weren’t lost on those there. Midway through the trials, George Washington big man Michael Brown asked every player to sign a trials game program, a souvenir he would keep for…