Selection Sunday is here, plus the WBC champs are knocked out
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Good morning! Get out of your bubble today. Coming up:
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⏳ Brackets incoming
‼️ Venezuela ousts Japan
⚡️ Arsenal teen breaks record
Crystallizing: March Madness field fluid with hours to go
First, so you don’t have to Google it: The NCAA men’s basketball tournament selection show is at 6 p.m. ET on CBS. The women’s tournament show follows at 8 p.m. on ESPN.
Keep an eye on the bubble situations here: men and women. Plus, here’s a detailed tracker of men’s automatic bids after Saturday’s frenetic set of conference championship games: No. 2 Arizona held off a spunky comeback attempt by No. 5 Houston in the Big 12, while Rick Pitino’s No. 13 St. John’s took the Big East from No. 6 UConn. Finally, No. 1 Duke edged past No. 10 Virginia to win the ACC and solidify itself as the favorite entering the Big Dance.
There’s still some ball left to be played. The men’s conference championships finishing up today are the Big Ten, SEC, American, Atlantic 10 and Ivy League. To what extent does the committee shift its seedings based on these results? Only the gods will ever know. Among the men, the day’s clearest in-versus-out stakes are in two games: Yale and Penn for Ivy League (12 p.m. ET, ESPN2) and Wichita State and USF for the American (3:15 p.m. ET, ESPN).
Meanwhile, No. 22 Vanderbilt and No. 17 Arkansas meet for the SEC championship at 1 p.m. on ESPN. No. 18 Purdue and No. 3 Michigan meet in the Big Ten final at 2:30 p.m. on CBS, with potential No. 1 overall seed ramifications for the Wolverines.
What do we already know for sure? A few things.
The men’s No. 1 seeds will be Duke, Michigan, Arizona and, barring some kind of shocker, Florida.
UConn will be the women’s No. 1 overall seed, UCLA will be No. 2 and everyone else will chase from a distance. Those two teams are a combined 65-1 this year. UConn has the best player in the land, Sarah Strong, and UCLA has the best center, Lauren Betts. UConn is favored against the field to win it all, with only UCLA and Texas being less than long shots. South Carolina looks good to be the other No. 1 seed.
The SEC will lead the men’s tournament in bids, with 10 or 11. The Big Ten, ACC, and Big 12 should get eight or nine apiece, with no one else clearing three and likely just eight multi-bid leagues. (It would’ve been seven if Miami (Ohio) hadn’t lost in the MAC.) The women’s situation looks similar, with the high-major conferences taking all but two or three of the at-large spots. Yikes!
There are several things we do not yet know about the men, however:
How will the No. 1 seeds be ordered?. Florida will be No. 4 overall, and it seems like Arizona will be No. 3. But how things shake out between Michigan and Duke may (or may not) depend on the Wolverines’ showing in the Big Ten title game.
Could the A-10 get three teams in? Bid theft alert: Dayton faces VCU for the Atlantic 10 championship (1 p.m. ET, CBS). Saint Louis is already safe somewhere around the No. 9 seed line, and VCU has been a frequent flier in our staff’s bubble debates. If Dayton takes an auto-bid, a three-bid A-10 is a discussion.
What becomes of Auburn? The Tigers have been the most debated bubble team for weeks, since even before Bruce Pearl started saying things on television. A sub-.500 team in their own league? Yes. A team with great wins, including over No. 1 seed Florida and newly minted Big East champ St. John’s? Also yes. Auburn fans will root hard against Dayton today.
All will be clear soon. Find all of our live Selection Sunday coverage here later today. Other good links: What it’s like to go through a mock selection process, plus a printable bracket. And here’s our sports betting team on the method of spotting a Cinderella early.
News to Know
Venezuela knocks out Japan
This World Baseball Classic has been full of surprises, and yesterday’s quarterfinals were no exception. Reigning champs Japan jumped out to a 5-2 lead against Venezuela, but the latter hung tough, and there were absolute scenes after Wilyer Abreu obliterated a belt-high fastball from Hiromi Itoh for a three-run shot on the way to a stunning 8-5 Venezuela victory. Earlier, Italy — where only nine MLB players have ever been born — eliminated baseball powerhouse Puerto Rico, 8-6. The Italians will meet Venezuela in the semis tomorrow night (7 p.m., FS1). Tonight, of course, it’s the U.S. vs. the D.R. (details below).
Arsenal wonderkid’s big night
Consider for a second: Arsenal winger Max Dowman is 16 years, 73 days old. He was still 15 at Christmas. But yesterday, Dowman helped set up a late winner that has the Gunners now nine points clear of Manchester City. Then, with Everton’s keeper all the way forward for a last-ditch Toffees corner, he received the ball well inside his own half and sped beyond everyone to make it 2-0 and become the Premier League’s youngest-ever goal scorer. Wow. Arsenal, meanwhile, are looking unlikely to be caught. See the full table here.
In other soccer news, Chelsea players did their center-circle huddle thing that’s winding everyone up, and this time they trapped the ref in the middle. Look at this hilarious photo.
You won’t see many goals scored from farther out than this one below from Real Madrid’s Arda Güler against Elche. Utterly mesmerizing.
More news:
Sweden’s Ludvig Åberg carries a 3-stroke lead into today’s final round at The Players Championship. There was a scary moment yesterday when a fatal shooting suspect entered course grounds during a manhunt. More on that here.
As expected, Formula 1 canceled the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian Grands Prix due to war in the Middle East.
The World Anti-Doping Agency said it’s not considering banning President Donald Trump from attending the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, as had been reported by the Associated Press. Read the full story.
Maple Leafs players expressed anger that Anaheim’s Radko Gudas didn’t receive a harsher penalty for the knee-on-knee hit that ended Auston Matthews’ season.
Canada’s mixed-team curlers had to make a high-stakes decision in the final seconds of their Paralympic gold-medal match against China. Great story here.
Watch Guide
📺 NBA: Timberwolves at Thunder
1 p.m. ET on ABC
Straightforward sell here, with Anthony Edwards on one team and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander on the other. (Edwards is listed as questionable with an illness and knee soreness, but played on Friday.) Minnesota is just outside the “top contender” tier in our power rankings.
📺 WBC: United States vs. Dominican Republic
8 p.m. ET on FS1
In a semifinal clash, Paul Skenes faces one of the most impressive lineups ever assembled. Here’s Ken Rosenthal on a matchup for the ages.
Get tickets to games like this here.
Pulse Picks
Texas’ Sarah Graves has made just seven shots all season. And yet she has gone viral for a team that could win the national title. Why?
What should each NBA team focus on over the final month of the season? The Athletic’s NBA staff weighs in.
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Vanderbilt men’s basketball has a freshman player named Chandler Bing. For real.
Most-clicked in the newsletter yesterday: How to properly say Travis Etienne Jr.’s name. (To be fair we’ve all been doing a great job on the Travis part.)
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This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
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