Kansas, Duke, Kentucky and Syracuse Top NCAA Tournament

A dramatic championship Sunday ends with a predictable start to the NCAA tournament. No. 1 Kansas is the overall top seed in the 2010 March Madness field.

Tournament regulars Kentucky, Syracuse and Duke round out the field's top seeds.

Kansas, the Big 12 regular-season and tournament champion, has spent most of the season as the nation's No. 1 team. The Jayhawks sit atop the Midwest region.

Kentucky, which outlasted Mississippi State in overtime to claim the SEC title, earned the top spot in the East region.

Duke may have been the only surprise among the top seeds, earning the third overall seed and a slot in the South Regional, which has its final in Houston. The Blue Devils split the ACC regular-season title with Maryland and defeated Georgia Tech for their ninth ACC title in 12 years Sunday afternoon.

Syracuse, which lost in its Big East opener to Georgetown Thursday, retained a spot on the top-seed line, but will be shipped to the West regional. A knee injury suffered by center Arinze Onuaku, in addition to the Orange's two losses to finish the season, may have cost Jim Boeheim's team.

Big Ten champion Ohio State earned the No. 2 seed in Kansas' Midwest bracket. Michigan State, a Final Four team a year ago, is the fifth seed while Maryland is the fourth seed. Tennessee, which toppled Kansas earlier in the year, is the sixth seed in the Midwest, while third-seed Georgetown, which lost in the Big East championship game, could face Ohio State in the Elite Eight.

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Syracuse, which is a top-seed for the first time since 1980, faces a familiar foe in the opening round. Sixteenth seed Vermont upset the Orange in 2005 in a 13 vs. 4 matchup. Vermont has won 11 of its last 12 games.



Share Mid-major tournament regulars Gonzaga, the eighth seed, and Butler, the fifth seed, are both in Syracuse's half of the West bracket.

Two bubble teams, Florida and Minneosta, both earned spots in the field, as 10th and 11th seeds respectively.

Kansas State, runner up to Kansas in the Big 12, is the No. 2 seed in the West.

Kentucky, which was No. 1 earlier this year, could face another former No. 1 in the second round. Texas, which claimed the top spot in January before losing nine of its final 16 games, is the eight seed with Kentucky in New Orleans. However, the Longhorns will have to knock off Wake Forest in the first round.

West Virginia, which was thought to be a candidate for a No. 1 seed, is the Wildcats' No. 2 seed and face MEAC champion Morgan State in the opening round.

Missouri, which made something of a Cinderella run to the Elite Eight last year, is the 10th seed in the East and will face seventh-seeded Clemson in the first round.

Pac-10 champion Washington is the 11th seed and will face sixth-seed Marquette of the Big East.

Mid-majors Temple and Cornell may be the most intriguing 5-12 matchup in the tournament. The fifth seeded Owls won the Atlantic-10 tournament and face Cornell, the Ivy League champion, who put a scare into Kansas in Allen Fieldhouse earlier this year.

Fourth-seed Wisconsin looms as a possible Sweet 16 game with Kentucky, but only if the Badgers can rebound from a poor showing at the Big Ten tournament and upset 13th seed Wofford, in its first NCAA tournament and riding a 13-game winning streak.

Duke earned its 11th No. 1 seed and first since 2006. The Blue Devils will face the winner of Tuesday night's play-in game between Arkansas Pine-Bluff and Winthrop.

The Blue Devils' second-round opponent will be plenty familiar. Head coach Rick Pitino, who coached Kentucky against the Blue Devils in the teams' 1992 Elite Eight showdown won on a buzzer-beater by Christian Laettner, leads Louisville into Jacksonville to face Duke. The Cardinals face Cal, the runner up in the Pac-10 tournament, in the opening round. The Bears' inclusion guaranteed that the Pac-10 wouldn't be a single-bid tournament for the first time in the modern era.

Villanova, which knocked Duke out of the tournament in the Sweet 16 last year, is the Blue Devils' No. 2 seed and face Robert Morris in the first round.

Baylor continues its climb years after being racked by scandal in the death of player Patrick Dennehy, and is the third seed in the South.

Purdue, which lost star player Robbie Hummel to a torn ACL in February, still salvaged a fourth seed, but might be an underdog to 13th seed Siena in the opening round. The MAAC champion Saints have lost just twice since Dec. 12.

Texas A&M earned the fifth seed in the region but might give up homecourt advantage to 12th-seed Utah State when the team's meet in Spokane.

Notre Dame, which played its way into the tournament with a run to the Big East tournament semifinals, and a strong late-season push, earned the sixth seed and faces Old Dominion in the opening round. Old Dominion won the Colonial Athletic Association and upset Georgetown on the Hoyas' home court early in the season.

Two mid-majors round out the South bracket. Richmond, which became a tournament darling in 1991 when the Spiders upset second-seeded Syracuse as a No. 15 seed, return as the seventh seed in their first tourney berth since 2004. St. Mary's, which was a bubble snub last year, earned the 10th seed as the West Coast Conference champions.

And then there were the snubs.

Virginia Tech, which finished fourth in the ACC and posted a 10-6 league record, was left out of the tournament yet again. The Hokies went 9-7 in the ACC regular season in 2008 and were also left just outside the tournament.

But Virginia Tech's weak non-conference schedule, which led to a 339th out-of-conference RPI, may have kept the Hokies out of the field.

"It's extremely difficult, there are so many teams having similar profiles [to Virginia Tech]," Hokies coach Seth Greenberg told ESPN.. "It's hard to win 10 games in ACC. It's hard to win at NC State ... at Georgia Tech.

"This committee thinks playing good people and losing is OK."

Mississippi State, which took Kentucky to overtime in the SEC final Sunday, leading Coach Rick Stansbury to ask how they couldn't be in the tournament if anyone watched the SEC final, was left out. The Bulldogs were one tenth of a second from claiming the SEC's automatic berth before a DeMarcus Cousins putback at the end of regulation set up the overtime loss.

Illinois, which finished with an unsavory 75 RPI, were also left out of the brackets. The erratic Illini twice knocked off Wisconsin this season, including on the road, beat Clemson on the road and defeated Michigan State at home. Illinois lost six of its final eight, but only lost to NCAA tournament teams.

The Illini might have lost their shot at the NCAA tournament in the Big Ten tournament. Illinois took eventual champion Ohio State to double overtime, but failed to get off a shot at the end of regulation and the first overtime.

"Coming into the day you thought it was 50-50," Illini coach Bruce Weber told ESPN." It's our fault, we let some games slip by early in the season. You get a call, or the ball doesn't go your way, or you get a shot and beat Ohio State and you're playing for the NCAA championship.

"We let some things go early and that put is in a bind. ... It cost us in the long haul."

The play-in game is Tuesday night. The first game in the field of 64 is Thursday.