Bracket winners and losers: MAC happy, Duke gets rough draw

The full NCAA Tournament bracket is here, and the madness is officially set to begin.

The committee announced its field of 68 Sunday evening, and the debates immediately started over who came out with a good draw and who got a rough slot.

While there are plenty of winners and losers across the entire bracket, here are four of each that immediately stood out.

Winner: Houston

Houston appears to be back on track after a rare three-game losing streak in the Kelvin Sampson era. The Cougars won their last three regular-season contests and made it all the way to the Big 12 championship game, where they lost a hard-fought battle against top-seeded Arizona.

Houston's got a fairly manageable path to the Sweet 16. It will essentially have home-court advantage in the South regional semifinal and final, as the Toyota Center is less than three miles away from the Fertitta Center. That certainly won't hurt the Cougars in a possible Elite Eight showdown and national championship rematch against Florida.

Houston returns three starters from last season's runner-up team, but the key to its title hopes could be Kingston Flemings. The first-year guard has gone through some growing pains as of late, yet has proven to be a game-changing talent with his shot-making, passing, and defensive smarts.

Loser: Duke

Duke's reward for getting the No. 1 overall seed was the most difficult path to the Final Four. The Blue Devils are already without two of their key players and must now navigate an East Region that features a number of coaching giants.

Duke could face Rick Pitino's St. John's program or Bill Self's Kansas squad in a potential blockbuster Sweet 16 matchup. The Red Storm responded to an embarrassing 32-point loss to UConn with five straight wins, including a dominant 20-point victory over the Huskies in the Big East Tournament final. Meanwhile, the Jayhawks have a number of signature wins on their resume and one of the most talented players in the tournament in freshman Darryn Peterson.

The bottom half of the Blue Devils' bracket includes UConn and Michigan State. The Huskies rolled through a difficult nonconference schedule and won back-to-back national titles under Dan Hurley in 2023 and 2024. The Spartans just continually find ways to win in March under Tom Izzo and have a strong core of veterans led by Jeremy Fears Jr.

Winner: MAC

An immediate wellness check would have been ordered if you told people at the beginning of the season that the MAC would get two teams in the NCAA Tournament. The players on conference champion Akron's roster weren't alive the last time the MAC got more than the auto-bid for the field of 68. However, for the first time since 1999, the conference saw multiple members announced on Selection Sunday. The Zips grabbed a 12-seed and will get a first-round matchup against a No. 5 Texas Tech team playing without superstar JT Toppin. Miami (OH) joined Akron with an at-large bid thanks largely to its perfect regular season. We can debate whether the RedHawks individually were winners or losers - see below - but there's no question the MAC as a whole feels pretty good about itself on Sunday night.

Loser: Miami (OH)

From the only undefeated team in the country to the First Four in the span of five days, Miami (OH)'s plight reminds us all that life comes at you fast in the world of mid-major college basketball. The RedHawks did in fact qualify for the tournament in the end, making it two MAC teams in the field for the first time since 1999. That certainly makes the conference a major winner, as we mentioned above. However, Miami (OH) went from 31-0 entering the conference tournament to having to play a First Four game against a major conference opponent. The consolation for the RedHawks faithful is the game will be played in Dayton, just 45 miles from their Oxford campus.

Winner: West Coast Conference

The WCC is sending three schools to the Big Dance for the first time in four years. Gonzaga and Saint Mary's have been the conference's usual representatives, but they're being joined this time around by Santa Clara. The Broncos are making their first NCAA Tournament appearance since the 1995-96 campaign, when Hall of Fame guard Steve Nash led the program to the second round.

A three-bid league was made possible once Santa Clara upset the Gaels in the WCC Tournament semifinals. Each of the three schools finished in the top 40 of the NET and WAB rankings, which proved vital on Selection Sunday. Gonzaga is seeded third in the West Region and is the conference's best shot at making some noise in March. The Bulldogs boast KenPom's ninth-best defense and the nation's 17th-highest scoring offense.

Loser: St. John's

Congratulations on your Big East Tournament title win, St. John's. Here's an absolutely brutal spot in the bracket to celebrate. The committee did the Red Storm zero favors with their decision Sunday, placing Rick Pitino's team as the 5-seed in Duke's bracket. That sets up a potential Sweet 16 contest against the top-ranked team in the country ... if St. John's can get there. First up is 12-seed Northern Iowa - a school with great upset history in the NCAA Tournament. The Panthers are as tough defensively as the Red Storm, sitting 24th nationally in KenPom's efficiency rankings on that side of the ball.

Should St. John's prevail in the opening round, a date with Bill Self and Kansas is likely waiting on the other side. Self is the winningest active NCAA Tournament coach in the country and has future NBA lottery pick Darryn Peterson at his disposal this time out.

Winner: Missouri

Missouri entered Selection Sunday firmly on the bubble with an NCAA tournament bid highly in question. Not only did the Tigers get in the field, but they avoided a play-in game and got an opening-round date in nearby St. Louis. The committee sent Texas, SMU, and NC State to the First Four as 11-seeds to play their way into the 64-team bracket. That decision came despite all three ranking ahead of Missouri in both the NET rankings and KenPom. That's some great luck for a team that finished the season with an 8-9 record in their last 17 games.

Loser: Auburn

Speaking of teams that finished ahead of Missouri in the NET rankings and KenPom, let's talk about Auburn. The committee finished with the Tigers as the second team out of the field when the bracket dropped. At first glance, it seems very odd this was a debate to begin with. Auburn finished with a 17-16 overall record on the year, which would have made it the first team with 16 or more losses to ever get an at-large bid.

However, like a college student who skips class and assignments frequently but aces the big test, Auburn had some big moments throughout the year. It beat 1-seed Florida and also took down Big East champions St. John's and SEC winners Arkansas.

In the end, that wasn't enough, and the overall poor record and 4-13 mark in Quadrant 1 games doomed last year's Final Four participant to miss the field altogether - much to the chagrin of Bruce Pearl.