{"id":488327,"date":"2026-03-16T08:54:26","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T07:54:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/?p=488327"},"modified":"2026-03-16T08:54:26","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T07:54:26","slug":"march-madness-2026-duke-earns-no-1-overall-seed-arizona-michigan-and-florida-join-top-line","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/march-madness-2026-duke-earns-no-1-overall-seed-arizona-michigan-and-florida-join-top-line\/","title":{"rendered":"March Madness 2026: Duke earns No. 1 overall seed; Arizona, Michigan and Florida join top line"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-start=\"1524\" data-end=\"1826\"><strong data-start=\"1524\" data-end=\"1539\">Duke (32-2)<\/strong> claimed the <strong data-start=\"1552\" data-end=\"1574\">overall No. 1 seed<\/strong>, with <strong data-start=\"1581\" data-end=\"1599\">Arizona (32-2)<\/strong>, <strong data-start=\"1601\" data-end=\"1620\">Michigan (31-3)<\/strong> and defending champion <strong data-start=\"1644\" data-end=\"1662\">Florida (26-7)<\/strong> rounding out the top line. After the First Four, the full opening slate tips Thursday and Friday, with the national champion crowned <strong data-start=\"1796\" data-end=\"1823\">April 6 in Indianapolis<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1828\" data-end=\"2102\">The twist is <strong data-start=\"1841\" data-end=\"1857\">Miami (Ohio)<\/strong>: 31-1 overall after an unbeaten regular season, yet only an <strong data-start=\"1918\" data-end=\"1929\">11-seed<\/strong> that must face <strong data-start=\"1945\" data-end=\"1952\">SMU<\/strong> in a First Four game Wednesday. \u201c<strong data-start=\"1986\" data-end=\"2073\">I was very confident\u2026 it\u2019s hard to leave a team that\u2019s 31-0 in a regular season out<\/strong>,\u201d forward Eian Elmer said.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"2104\" data-end=\"2426\">Selection committee chair <strong data-start=\"2130\" data-end=\"2144\">Keith Gill<\/strong> explained the placement: \u201c<strong data-start=\"2171\" data-end=\"2250\">They have some really strong resume metrics that show their accomplishments<\/strong>,\u201d but a <strong data-start=\"2259\" data-end=\"2296\">339th-ranked strength of schedule<\/strong> and <strong data-start=\"2301\" data-end=\"2331\">zero Quadrant 1 games\/wins<\/strong> hurt their case. Among notable omissions: <strong data-start=\"2374\" data-end=\"2423\">San Diego State, Indiana, Oklahoma and Auburn<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">THE BRACKET \ud83e\udd29<\/p>\n<p>Fill out yours: <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/Jt9eXr7f5T\">https:\/\/t.co\/Jt9eXr7f5T<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/9g8ciMYUhv\">pic.twitter.com\/9g8ciMYUhv<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MarchMadnessMBB\/status\/2033312309297226189?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 15, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">A closer look at the bracket, region-by-region \ud83d\udd0d<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/MarchMadness?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#MarchMadness<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/nfzXEc9PEN\">pic.twitter.com\/nfzXEc9PEN<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MarchMadnessMBB\/status\/2033331213654475005?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 15, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">The Selection Committee\u2019s official rankings of the 2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/MarchMadness?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#MarchMadness<\/a> field! \ud83d\udc40 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/bnpd8RgdIh\">pic.twitter.com\/bnpd8RgdIh<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MarchMadnessMBB\/status\/2033326005390025123?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 15, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Selection Sunday sets the bracket: Miami (Ohio) lands an 11-seed and heads to the First Four. Title game is April 6 in Indianapolis<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":146,"featured_media":488326,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_spbk_hide_featured":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[401],"tags":[],"rumors":[],"typology":[],"posizionamento":[],"class_list":["post-488327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ncaa"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2026\/03\/HDfGgqFaEAAYxwZ.png","digistream_id":0,"digistream":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/146"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=488327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488327\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/488326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=488327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=488327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=488327"},{"taxonomy":"rumors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rumors?post=488327"},{"taxonomy":"typology","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/typology?post=488327"},{"taxonomy":"posizionamento","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posizionamento?post=488327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}