These 8 teams will play in Salt Lake City in the NCAA Tournament
The bracket for the 2024 68-team men’s NCAA Tournament was unveiled on Sunday, and thus the eight teams that will begin their roads to the Final Four in Salt Lake City were revealed.
As a No. 2 seed, Arizona is the highest-seeded squad that will play at the Delta Center on Thursday. The Wildcats will face the 15-seed Long Beach State 49ers, who infamously won the Big West tournament on Saturday after firing head coach Dan Monson last Monday, effective at the end of the season.
Kansas is the next highest seed that will play in Salt Lake City. The Jayhawks received a No. 4 seed after a somewhat disappointing season by their standards and will face the No. 13 seed Samford Bulldogs out of Alabama and the Southern Conference.
Most notably it will mark the return to Utah of Samford guard Rylan Jones, who graduated from Olympus High and then began his collegiate career at Utah before transferring to Utah State and then ultimately Samford.
Certainly the most intriguing matchup on paper that will take place in Utah is the 5-12 one between No. 5 Gonzaga and No. 12 McNeese State.
Like Kansas, Gonzaga had a down season relative to its standards but received a higher seed than some were perhaps expecting. The Bulldogs’ reward, however, is a McNeese team that went 30-3 under head coach Will Wade.
If Wade’s name sounds familiar, it may be because he was involved in a scandal while at LSU related to allegedly offering a recruit benefits. He was ultimately fired in 2022 and hired at McNeese last March and his name has been circulated as a potential candidate for higher level head coaching jobs this spring.
Elsewhere with McNeese, guard Mike Saunders Jr. played his high school ball at Wasatch Academy in Mount Pleasant and he played at Utah last season before transferring to McNeese.
In the last matchup that will be played at the Delta Center, No. 7 seed Dayton will face No. 10 seed Nevada. Dayton is the lone team from the Atlantic 10 Conference to currently be ranked in the Associated Press Top 25, at No. 24.
Nevada, meanwhile, had a resurgence this season (currently ranked No. 23 in the country) and will have a geographic advantage over Dayton despite being a lower seed.
The winners of the four games on Thursday will advance to play Saturday at the Delta Center for berths in the Sweet 16.
Thursday’s game times have not yet been released.
