Congratulations to (deep breath) Vermont, Duke, Iowa State, Villanova, North Dakota, UC Davis, Middle Tennessee, Kent State, North Carolina Central, Nevada, Arizona, New Orleans, and New Mexico State on their NCAA tournament automatic bids!
Whew, that’s a lot of teams.
We still have six more auto-bids to hand out today, and I feel like that number keeps growing for some reason. I know part of it is the television providers telling the conferences where their available windows are, but the selection committee also keeps telling the conferences that, unless they involve a bid thief, these Sunday games don’t have any impact on the bracketing and seeding of the tournament.