The 2025 NCAA Tournament bracket has been revealed and the Duke Blue Devils (31-3, 19-1 ACC) earned a 1-seed in the big dance and will lead the East Region. The other 1-seeds are Auburn, Florida, and Houston and the 2-seeds are Michigan State, Alabama, St. John's, and Tennessee.
The Blue Devils will play the winner of the 16-seed First Four game between American and Mount St. Mary's.
Now, part of the excitement and what makes March Madness so great is Selection Sunday. The bubble teams waiting to see if they are in or out, the top squads figuring out who their opponents will be. All of the chaos and suspense are a huge reason why it's such a great event.
But this season, there were certainly a few questionable decisions made by the committee, and someone could definitely wonder how these choices were finalized by its members.
The first head-scratching move is that Auburn earned the #1 overall seed in the event, not Duke. Auburn has been fantastic all season and was projected to be the top seed for a long time, but recent play had opened discussion into whether another squad should take the top spot over, and it absolutely should've been Duke who earned the top overall seed in the big dance.
Auburn deserved the top seed up until the final few games of the regular season. After starting the season out 27-2, the Tigers lost three of their final four regular season games and fell to Tennessee in the semifinals of the SEC Tournament.
On the other hand, Duke won its final eleven games of the season including the ACC Tournament, and won the ACC regular season title and ACC Tournament Championship.
Granted, the SEC is lightyears better than the ACC this season, but there's no way Auburn should've been picked over Duke after how the regular season ended for both clubs. And on top of that, the Blue Devils have already beaten the Tigers head to head, as Duke took down Auburn at Cameron Indoor 84-78 earlier this season.
However, the even more jaw-dropping decision is that North Carolina made the field. When UNC lost to Duke in the ACC Tournament semifinals, dropping the Tar Heels' record against the Blue Devils this season to 0-3, it felt like the program's tournament hopes went down the drain. Yet somehow, UNC still made it.
UNC finished the regular season 22-13 overall and 13-7 in ACC play. Although it played one of the hardest schedules in the country, the Heels are 1-12 in Quad 1 games and have a Quad 3 loss to Stanford. The most impressive win the Heels have this season is over UCLA on a neutral court, and the Bruins made the field as a 7-seed.
It was a shock to see UNC in the field over teams like West Virginia or Indiana, and it doesn't feel like the Heels deserve to have a spot. But nonetheless, Hubert Davis' squad was selected as one of the last four teams in and will play San Diego State in an 11-seed First Four matchup.
Every year there's decisions made by the committee that the public disagrees with, and it's part of the excitement. But some were made this year that are hard to comprehend and really don't make much sense at all.