NCAA Tournament Selection Chairman: Kentucky, Syracuse Have NCAA Edge

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CBSSports.com wire reports

Even the chairman of the tight-lipped NCAA selection committee can't deny this simple fact: Heading into this week's conference tournaments, there's Kentucky and Syracuse, and then everybody else.

In a teleconference to preview Sunday's release of the NCAA tournament pairings, committee chairman Jeff Hathaway all but handed two of the four top seeds to the Wildcats and Orange, each of whom entered their conference tournaments with a record of 30-1.

"I think we all agree that if the season ended today, we know who the two best teams are," he said Wednesday. "If you're looking at 3 and 4 on the first line and the entire second line, we have the same handful of teams in mind but where they would be laced will be a tremendous debate."

Though Hathaway, the former athletic director at defending national champion Connecticut, did not get specific, among those lumped into consideration for the other top seeds are Duke, Kansas, North Carolina, Missouri, Ohio State and Michigan State.

The brackets come out Sunday evening, with the tournament starting Tuesday. MORE....