The 2025 NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship Tournament lengthens its streak of fielding at least one team making their tournament debut. This is the 86th tournament and each one has featured a first-time team. This year features four debut schools. They are the University of Nebraska at Omaha Mavericks representing the Summit League, the High Point University Panthers of High Point, North Carolina from the Big South Conference, the Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville Cougars from the Ohio Valley Conference, and the University of California at San Diego Tritons of the Big West Conference. The Tritons made the field in their first year of eligibility after four mandated transition seasons to Division I from Division II. UC San Diego enters the tournament with the nation’s longest win streak of 15 games.
The Southeastern Conference set a record for the most number of berths by a conference. The SEC received 14 invitations. The previous high was the Big East Conference in 2011 when they received 11 berths. In that tournament, nine of eleven Big East teams lost in the first or second round, but member team Connecticut hoisted the championship banner.
The SEC has four teams as 1 or 2 seeds. This is just the second time a conference has earned that many top-two seeds. In 2021, the Big Ten also had four top-two seeds, but in that tournament only one of those four advanced to the Sweet Sixteen. That team, Michigan (1-seed), lost in the Elite Eight.
This year’s top seeds are the Auburn Tigers (their 2nd 1-seed), the Duke Blue Devils (their 15th 1-seed), the Houston Cougars (their 3rd), and the Florida Gators (their 3rd). Houston earned a 1-seed for the third-straight season. The other teams that have been a 1 in three straight tournaments are: DePaul (1980-82), Virginia (1981-83), Kentucky (1995-97), Duke (2004-06), North Carolina (2007-09), Kansas (2016-18), and Gonzaga (2019-22).
A team seeded 4 or worse has made the Final Four in each of the last fourteen tournaments. For 5 seeds or worse, the streak is eleven seasons. In last year’s tournament, 11-seed North Carolina State and 4-seed Alabama reached the Final Four, but neither reached the Final.
A team seeded 7 or worse has advanced to the Elite Eight in 12 of the past 13 tournaments. The 2019 tournament is the outlier within this stretch.
The Saint Francis University Red Flash from Loretto, Pennsylvania earned their first berth in 34 years. Their only other berth came in 1991. Saint Francis’ Northeast Conference has produced eight different league tournament champions in eight years. The Red Flash are one of only five teams (since 2002) to make the tournament with a KenPom ranking worse than 300. Saint Francis is ranked 311 by KenPom, the third-worst position for a tournament team. The worst ranking for a tournament qualifier is the 2018 North Carolina Central Eagles at 316.