2023 NCAA Tournament Projections: UCLA grabs 1-seed; UConn also on rise

Last updated: 2023/03/05 at 8:52 PM

BigP Published March 5, 2023

Don’t look now, but here comes UCLA.

The Bruins (27-4), having already clinched the Pac-12 regular season title, put an emphatic stamp on the season with a victory over Arizona on Saturday night. It was their 25th straight win at Pauley Pavilion — the nation’s longest active home winning streak — and they finished four games ahead of the second-place Wildcats (25-6).

The recent run has also propelled UCLA to a 1-seed in Mike DeCourcy‘s latest NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament projections, which were released on Sunday. If that holds, the Bruins could earn their first 1-seed since 2008, when a squad coached by Ben Howland and led by Kevin Love and Russell Westbrook advanced to the Final Four.

UCLA joins Alabama, Houston and Kansas as 1-seeds. Purdue, which entered Sunday’s game against Illinois having lost four of its last seven games, dropped to a 2-seed. The Boilermakers are joined by Texas, Baylor and Arizona.

The 3-seeds include Kansas State, Marquette and Gonzaga, as well as UConn, which moved up from a 4-seed after ending its regular season with five straight wins. The Huskies replaced Tennessee.

[UConn enters Big East tourney brimming with confidence]

As far as the bubble goes, DeCourcy includes Arizona State, Clemson, Nevada and Michigan among his first four currently out of the tournament. His next four out includes North Carolina, which is the first preseason AP No. 1 team to lose 12 games in a season, as well as Utah State, Vanderbilt and Oregon.

When it comes to conference representation, the Big Ten leads the way with 10 teams, while both the Big 12 and SEC have eight teams represented. The ACC and Big East each have five teams in DeCourcy’s projections.