The NCAA provided an early insight into what the projected top-16 seeds would be for this year’s NCAA Tournament on Sunday, and Arizona men’s basketball would be a four-seed if play began today. 

According to NCAA selection chairman Bruce Rasmussen, the Wildcats would be out west with No. 1 seed Purdue, No. 2 seed Kansas and No. 3 seed North Carolina. Of course, there is still a lot of basketball to be played with every conference having three weeks left in the regular season, but this is an indicator as to how things could shake out in March.

A four-seed in the West would have two main highlights for Wildcats fans: travel and Purdue. The route for Arizona would feature first and second round games in San Diego, then place the UA in Los Angeles for the Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight rounds should they get that far. The problem is Purdue, a team the Wildcats faced in the Bahamas and lost to by 25. The Boilermakers have size and senior guards that could provide a variety of problems for the ‘Cats.

Rasmussen said on CBS that one of the more important factors in judging the field were true road wins. A true road win is a game at an opposing team’s home court, not a neutral site game. Arizona has wins on the road at UNLV, New Mexico and Utah, with games left at ASU, at Oregon and at Oregon State.

The Pac-12 has a total of five teams projected to be in the field, with ASU a six-seed in the South, USC in a play-in game with Kansas St. as a 12-seed, Washington an 11-seed in the West and UCLA a 10 in the East. The rest of the top four seeds in each region are below.

West- (1- Purdue, 2-Kansas, 3-UNC, 4-Arizona)

East- (1- Villanova, 2-Duke, 3-Texas Tech, 4-Ohio State)

Midwest- (1- Xavier, 2- Auburn, 3- Clemson, 4-Oklahoma)

South- (1-Virginia, 2- Cincinnatti , 3- Mich. State, 4-Tennessee)

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