March Madness 2025: Selection Sunday winners and losers
Now that the March Madness brackets have been revealed for both the men’s and women’s NCAA tournaments, some teams fared better than others.
After taking a look at each of the 68-team fields, here are the winners and losers from Selection Sunday as March Madness is officially ready to get underway this week.
Winners
The SEC
The conference is an obvious winner after setting a men's NCAA tournament record with 14 teams in the 2025 edition of March Madness. Only South Carolina and LSU fell short of the tournament as they combined to win just five SEC games.
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The committee felt the SEC was so good this season that it didn’t bat an eye at the 6-12 conference records that Texas and Oklahoma put up. Yeah, the Longhorns were one of the final teams in the tournament and play in the First Four in Dayton, but Oklahoma got a No. 9 seed.
The SEC ended up with four teams among the top eight seeds and six of the top 16 seeds in the tournament. And 11 of the 14 teams are single-digit seeds. With Texas at No. 11, Arkansas and Vanderbilt are No. 10 seeds.
Predictably, the SEC has the best chance of any conference to have the national title winner. Florida is the new favorite to win it all after winning the conference tournament and four of the top six betting favorites are SEC schools.
-NB
Rick Pitino
Is there a more reliable winner in college basketball than Rick Pitino? St. John's earned a No. 2 seed in the tournament field in Pitino's second season as head coach and is now the sixth team that Pitino has coached to the NCAA tournament.
Pitino's now coached Boston University, Providence, Kentucky, Louisville and Iona in addition to St. John's to NCAA tournament appearances and has led two teams to NCAA championships (1996 Kentucky, 2013 Louisville, vacated). He's largely found his success after taking over programs that were struggling before his arrival.
St. John's is a prime example. A former Big East power, St. John's had fallen on rough times in recent decades and hadn't made the NCAA tournament since 2019 before Pitino's arrival in 2023. In his first year, he took a team that finished 18-15 the year prior to 20-13. Now he has St. John's in the postseason as a legitimate threat to win a championship.
-JO
Kentucky
Did the Wildcats get a blue-blood boost from the committee? Kentucky finished the season 22-11 and is No. 16 in KenPom.com’s rankings and No. 15 in the NET rankings. Yet UK got a No. 3 seed on Selection Sunday.
Kentucky ranks behind four teams that got lower seeds in KenPom’s data, including No. 8 seed Gonzaga and No. 6 seed Missouri. The Wildcats had the same record as the Tigers, though they beat Missouri in the final game of the regular season on the road.
To be clear, Kentucky probably deserved no lower than a No. 4 seed. But every seed line matters.
-NB
North Carolina
Many thought North Carolina's bubble was burst after it lost in the ACC tournament semifinal to Duke. But the opening moments of Sunday's NCAA bracket reveal delivered good news for the Tar Heels.
North Carolina squeaked in as the last team in the field and a No. 11 seed in the South. The Tar Heels made the field despite a 1-12 record in Quad 1 matchups and on the strength of their No. 36 NET rating and No. 33 KenPom rating.
Carolina will still have to earn its way into the tournament's true 64-team field. It faces a First Four matchup against San Diego State on Tuesday.
-JO
Losers
Auburn
The No. 1 overall seed shouldn’t have to worry about a partisan crowd against it during the first weekend of the NCAA tournament. But that’s what Auburn could be facing in the second round. The Tigers got sent to Lexington, Kentucky, for their first- and second-round games. That’s not a big deal by itself.
But the No. 8 seed at that site is Louisville. The Cardinals play Creighton in the first round and will have a raucous crowd behind it in Lexington if they win that game. Louisville is also probably under-seeded as a No. 8 seed too. The committee could have sent the Cardinals somewhere else. But instead, Auburn has a potential disadvantage despite getting the top seed in the entire tournament.
-NB
Missouri
The Tigers got the seed they deserved at No. 6 and have a short drive to Wichita, Kansas, for their first-round game. But Mizzou drew an incredibly tough No. 11 seed in Drake.
The Bulldogs went 30-3 this season and won the Missouri Valley. Drake is coached by former Northwest Missouri State coach Ben McCollum — one of the hottest coaching candidates this offseason — and is led by Bennett Stirtz, a native of suburban Kansas City, Missouri. Including Stirtz, four of Drake’s five starters played for McCollum at Division II Northwest Missouri State.
Drake is one of the best defensive teams in the country. Missouri is one of the best offensive teams in the country, but its defense has tailed off at the end of the season. Missouri will be a trendy pick to get upset in the first round as the Tigers hold the record for most NCAA tournament appearances without a Final Four appearance.
-NB
Indiana
Of the teams sweating the bubble, many pegged Indiana as the best bet to make the field. They were wrong.
Indiana finished 10-10 in a tough Big Ten that produced eight NCAA tournament teams. It also won five of its last eight games. But it lost to Oregon for a one-and-done outing in the Big Ten tournament. That combined with a 2-8 midseason stretch ultimately spelled doom for the Hoosiers' hopes of making the NCAA tournament.
-JO
West Virginia
Like Indiana, West Virginia felt like a safe candidate for the NCAA field heading into conference tournament play. Like Indiana, an early exit in tournament play ultimately spelled its doom.
The Mountaineers lost to last-place Colorado in their first game at the Big 12 tournament, putting their NCAA hopes in peril. They also lost six of eight games in a tough midseason stretch from late January into February that included five losses to unranked teams.
In the end, six wins in 16 Quad 1 games weren't enough to put the Mountaineers over the hump and into the 68-team field.
-JO
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