Arizona Wildcats land tentative No. 1 NCAA Tournament seed but have few resume-building chances left

Arizona entered Saturday evening on track for a No. 1 NCAA Tournament seed, but the Wildcats might not have much margin for error if they want to keep it.

During its Saturday morning “Early Bracket Preview” show on CBS, the NCAA Tournament selection committee assigned the Wildcats the West Region’s No. 1 seed and the fourth overall seed behind the three other No. 1s: No. 1 overall seed Purdue (Midwest), UConn (East) and Houston (South).

That indicates Arizona could be vulnerable to dropping below the top seed line, especially considering the collective weakness among the Wildcats’ remaining Pac-12 opponents.

CBS analyst Seth Davis even predicted on the bracket preview show that the Wildcats would slip below the No. 1 seed line because they have no Quad 1 opportunities left on their schedule. Arizona is 7-3 in Quad one games, but all its remaining regular season games are Quad 2 games except their home game against ASU late Saturday, which was a Quad 3.

“Marquette’s got four (Quad 1 games); Tennessee has four,” Davis said. “To me, they’re like racehorses, kind of getting on that inside rail, seeing the dash to the finish line. I think one of those two is gonna jump.”

When asked about Davis’ comment during an interview with the Star after he appeared on the CBS show Saturday, committee chair Charles McClelland said only that all teams would be evaluated on their entire résumés at the time of seeding.

“We won’t project out,” said McClelland, the Southwestern Athletic Conference commissioner. “I think what’s probably most prominent when you start talking about the Quads is `win the games that you have on your schedule.’

“Right now, Arizona already has seven Quad 1 wins. So they’ve done a really good job of winning the games in Quad 1. We don’t necessarily go compare if you have X number here and X number there. What we look at is who you play, where you play and what the result is.”

UA could pick up Quad 1 opportunities in the Pac-12 Tournament if the Wildcats face Washington State (36), Colorado (42) or Utah (48). Games against Oregon (63) and Washington (67) could count as Quad 1 games in the tournament if those teams rise to No. 50 or better before then.

Quad 1 games are defined as those at home against teams with a 1-30 NET ranking, neutral games against the top-50 teams and road games against the top 75. Quad 2 games are home games against teams ranked 31-75, neutral games against teams 51-100, and away games against teams 76-135.

The good news for the Wildcats is that, according to McClelland, they had separated themselves from teams below the No. 1 seed line as of early Saturday. Arizona (19-5 overall and 10-3 in the Pac-12) sat in first place in the Pac-12 heading into its home game with ASU and was the No. 3 ranked team in the NCAA’s NET ratings.

McClelland said all 12 committee members had the top four teams in the exact same order: Purdue first, followed by UConn, then Houston and finally Arizona.

“From my understanding, that had never been done prior,” McClelland said. “It tells you the job that these four teams have done. It’s significant, simply because they’ve put in a lot of work. And when you look at their resumes, they’ve earned the right to be on these top seed lines.”

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It’s a different story below the fourth seed line, where a number of teams have the potential to jump into the preferred 1-4 seed range.

“When you start getting into the five, six, and possibly seven seeds, there are additional blemishes on their resumes that might not necessarily be on fourth, third, second or first,” McClelland said. “But this is February the 17th. There’s still four weeks of basketball to be played, which is an eternity in collegiate basketball. There definitely will be some moves.”

Before starting in 2017 to announce the top 16 teams about a month before the NCAA Tournament, the committee’s projections were kept entirely behind closed doors, leaving only media bracket projections to guess at the field until Selection Sunday. McClelland said holding them has helped generate more interest in the tournament overall and in the Final Four.

“And I think ultimately, it could serve as some additional motivation for some of those teams that see themselves on the outside looking in,” to the top 16 teams, McClelland said.

“So we view it as 100% positive and an exciting opportunity to show the fans what we are thinking inside of the committee room and giving those teams an opportunity to continue to enhance their resume.”

Arizona has added some unique aspects to the committee’s work this season: Not only will the Final Four be held in Glendale for the second time, after it also was in 2016-17, but former Arizona athletic director Dave Heeke had to step down from the committee after he left UA last month.

But McClelland noted that the committee does not discuss locations during team evaluations and that Heeke’s replacement, Oregon State AD Scott Barnes, had already been chairman (in 2015) during a previous stint on the committee.

Barnes “took the torch and ran with it like he was on the committee from Day 1,” McClelland said.

Even if Arizona drops below the No. 1 seed line, the Wildcats appear likely to stay in the West Region and won’t have to travel to any state other than those bordering Arizona the rest of this season.

The Wildcats will likely play first-weekend games in a four-team pod at Salt Lake City and if they win their first two games, advance to the West Region semifinal and final games in Los Angeles for a chance at the Final Four in Glendale.

McClelland said the No. 1 overall seed gets to choose which first-weekend location to play at, while the other top seeds are assigned to the closest spot; Salt Lake City is the only first-weekend site within 1,000 miles of Tucson.

NCAA Tournament selections will be announced on March 17, a day after the Pac-12 Tournament championship game is held in Las Vegas. If assigned to Salt Lake City, Arizona would begin NCAA Tournament play on Thursday, March 21.