March Madness bracket rankings 2018: Virginia is overall No. 1 seed

For the second consecutive year, and first time this season, college basketball fans were given a look into the minds of the March Madness selection committee, which revealed its top 16 teams as of right now. It’s a Selection Sunday preview, four weeks before the actual event.

This is as bizarre a weekend as ever for the committee to have to choose seedings, as an overwhelming number of top-ranked teams lost this week. That includes AP No. 1 Villanova to unranked St. John’s, No. 2 Virginia to unranked Virginia Tech, No. 10 Kansas to unranked Baylor, and No. 13 Arizona to unranked UCLA.

The committee went with Virginia as the No. 1 overall seed, then Villanova, Purdue, and Xavier. Auburn was the top No. 2 seed.

Here’s how the rest of the bracket was projected:

No. 1: Virginia

No. 2: Villanova

No. 3: Purdue

No. 4: Xavier

No. 5: Auburn

No. 6: Kansas

No. 7: Duke

No. 8: Cincinnati

No. 9: Clemson

No. 10: Texas Tech

No. 11: Michigan State

No. 12: North Carolina

No. 13: Tennessee

No. 14: Ohio State

No. 15: Arizona

No. 16: Oklahoma

Here’s how the bracket would look:

The real Selection Sunday is on March 11, with the First Four portion of the tournament beginning on March 13.