Selection committee gets to work on building NCAA bracket

A dozen NCAA men's basketball tournament berths were nailed down by the end of Tuesday, and 19 more are to be settled by conference tournaments in the next five days. That's the easy part.Wednesday, the 10-person committee that puts the Division I tournament together gathers in Indianapolis' downtown Westin Hotel and begins the exhaustive process of filling out and seeding the 65-team field. First ballots are due by 4:30 ET Wednesday.The clock is ticking toward 6 p.m. Sunday, when the bracket — who's in, who's not, who'll play whom — is unveiled on national TV. For every given, there's a question mark. North Carolina and Pittsburgh appear assured of No. 1 seeds, and the Big East Conference should land another in Connecticut or regular-season champion Louisville. Can the powerhouse league score a precedent-setting three? Oklahoma and Memphis lead the No. 1 options. Also to be determined:Will the deep Big Ten wind up with more tournament entries, as many as eight, than the more celebrated Big East and Atlantic Coast? Will the Southeastern settle for as few as three berths, its fewest since 1990? Kentucky, which hasn't missed the field since 1991, is a longshot unless the Wildcats turn heads in the SEC tournament. Arizona, whose 24 consecutive appearances represent the longest active streak, also is iffy going into the Pacific 10 tournament. What of 2008 Elite Eight qualifier Davidson and national scoring leader Stephan Curry, who fell in the Southern Conference tournament semifinals and have questionable credentials for one of the 34 at-large bids handed out by the NCAA committee? Same for Saint Mary's, which got point guard Patty Mills back from a broken hand but hardly showed tournament chops in an 83-58 loss to Gonzaga in Monday night's West Coast final. The Gaels (25-6) have added another, probably inconsequential game to their schedule vs. Eastern Washington. "Get that done on Friday," center Omar Samhan said, "and say some prayers on Saturday night. We're a good team. And God, I'd love to be in the tournament again. But I wouldn't have to go in front of them (the selection committee) at all if we took care of business." SOURCE:USATODAY