Long-winded post ahead, but i love this stuff!
I’m a bit of an amateur bracketologist and have been doing my own projected brackets every two weeks since mid-January, so I’ve grown somewhat familiar with the bracketing rules.
As others have insinuated, it may well come down to the s-curve.
For placing the top four seeds in regions, the most important rules are:
- geography: the higher you are on the s-curve, within your seed line, the more likely you are to land in your geographically-preferred region. Barring a couple of major considerations
- the first four teams from the same conference, among the top 16 seeds, cannot be in the same region. One of my favorite times this rule broke was 2009, when 3-seed Nova got placed with 1-seed Pitt… because the top four Big East teams were 1. UL, 1. Pitt, 1. Us, and 3. Cuse. The main takeaway here is that it is impossible for us to have Marquette or Creighton in the East with us. This also means we’re very likely to have a XII somewhere in our top four seed lines (Hou, ISU, Bay, KU), and an SEC team as our 4 (Aub, Bama, or yes, UK)
- competitive balance is also considered - the committee cannot place 5 on the s-curve (top 2 seed) with the number one overall seed. I believe the goal is, after assigning the top 16 s-curve seeds, to not have the sums of those seed values on the s-curve be more than 6 apart. (i.e., one region gets 1, 6, 10, 14; 31 total, and another gets 4, 8, 11, 13; 36 total)
- lastly will be if the teams played a prior (non con) game that season. This is the lowest concern, but the committee will generally try to keep such teams from facing until the Elite Eight at the earliest. It’s easier to manage at the higher seeds, but more frequently gets broken to account for avoiding conference games early in the tourney further down the seed line (i.e., non-zero shot we get Texas in our 8-9 game)
All that is to say it will depend on the s-curve. Let’s take the current bracketmatrix one, apply the principles, and see who UConn might land:
Midwest: 1. Purdue, 7. Iowa St., 10. Creighton, 16. Auburn (34 total)
East: 2. UConn, 5. North Carolina, 12. Kansas, 14. Alabama (33)
South: 3. Houston, 8. Marquette, 11. Duke, 13. Kentucky (35)
West: 4. Tennessee, 6. Arizona, 9. Baylor, 15. Illinois (34)
Basically, because geography, unless they get the 1 out west, it’s exceedingly likely UNC is our 2. Otherwise, it’s likely Iowa State/Baylor/Kansas (?). Tennessee, if not a 1, would likely go to the South with Houston than the East, sparing us them. Arizona is virtually locked into the West, no matter if they’re a 1, 2, or even a 3. If UNC does get the 1 out west, I’d bet a lot of money we get one of those XII teams.