No. 1 Duke is the reigning champion, and No. 2 San Diego State has never won an NCAA tournament game. In looking for a Cinderella, consider Bucknell.
Top-seeded teams
No. 1 Duke: The Blue Devils are the defending national champions and are coming off the high of winning the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament.
No. 2 San Diego State: The Aztecs have never won an NCAA tournament game, so this is heady territory, being seeded second to Duke. This is the first 30-win season in history for the team as well.
No. 3 Connecticut: The Huskies won five straight games to become Big East tournament champions Saturday night. Will Jim Calhoun's group have its legs back?
No. 4 Texas: The Longhorns lost three of their last six games and count a 73-56 loss to USC on its record. Texas is led by Jordan Hamilton, a 6-foot-7 swingman from Compton.
Cinderella search
Bucknell. The Bison went to the second round in 2005 and 2006 and beat No. 3-seeded Kansas as the No. 14-seeded team in 2005 and upset Arkansas a year later. Bucknell just behaves as if it belongs.
Top players
Kyle Singler, forward, Duke: The 6-foot-8 senior who was the other star in Oregon when Kevin Love picked UCLA, averages 17.3 points and 6.8 rebounds a game. He was the Final Four most valuable player last year.
Kemba Walker, guard, Connecticut: The 6-foot-1 junior made six game-winning shots this season. He averages 23.5 points a game, shoots 80% from the foul line and led the Huskies with 68 steals.
Kawhi Leonard, forward, San Diego State: The 6-foot-7 sophomore from Riverside averages a double-double for the Aztecs — 15.4 points and 10.7 rebounds.
Rim shots
Hampton is not without NCAA tradition. In 2001, the Pirates became only the fourth 15th-seeded team to win a tournament game. Hampton upset Iowa State, 58-57.
Fifth-seeded Arizona drew 12th-seeded Memphis in the first round in one of those "The NCAA did this on purpose" moments. Memphis is coached by Josh Pastner, who was an assistant under Lute Olson at Arizona from 2002-08.
Temple and Penn State are about 200 miles apart in Pennsylvania. So they get to travel about 2,000 miles to meet each other in the first round in Tucson.
Northern Colorado has never played in the tournament before. Four years ago, the Bears were 4-24. This year they won the Big Sky Conference tournament. Much of the rebuilding was done by former coach Tad Boyle, who got the Colorado job last year. Colorado was snubbed by the selection committee.
West matchups
At CHARLOTTE, N.C., FRIDAY
No. 1 Duke (30-4, Atlantic Coast Conference champion) vs. No. 16 Hampton (24-8, Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference champion). The Blue Devils are coming in on the high of beating archrival North Carolina in the ACC tournament championship game. Harvey Grant, a star with his twin brother, Horace, is an assistant coach for Hampton.
Source :http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-west-regional-20110314,0,3496332.story
