Auburn is the top overall seed in the NCAA Tournament, with Duke, Houston and Florida joining the Tigers on the No. 1 line in the March Madness brackets released Sunday.

The NCAA selection committee favored the regular-season champs of the record-setting Southeastern Conference despite three losses in their last four games, along with a loss to Duke back in December.

The Tigers (28-5) and Gators were two of the 14 SEC teams to make the field, which are the most for a conference in the history of the tournament.

It’s Florida, which captured the SEC tournament by winning three games with an average margin of 15 points, that opens as a slight favorite to win it all at the Final Four in San Antonio on April 5 and 7, according to BetMGM Sportsbook.

In something of a surprise, both North Carolina and Texas slid in off the bubble, while Indiana, West Virginia and Boise State did not.

The 68-team bracket starts whittling down on Tuesday with preliminary games, and the main draw kicks off on Thursday and Friday, with 32 games at eight sites around the country.

A bracket with plenty to talk about

North Carolina looked all but out, a victim of a 1-12 record against so-called Quad 1 opponents and part of a conference (ACC) teetering on the verge of a historically bad season. But the Tar Heels made it, thanks maybe to a strong nonconference slate, while Texas was also in — its seven wins against Quad 1 teams outweighing its overall 15 losses.

The SEC’s 14 teams were followed by the Big Ten with eight and Big 12 with seven. The ACC, meanwhile, ended up with four teams, barely avoiding its worst showing since 2000, back when the conference was half the size it is now.

The ACC has Duke, and Duke has arguably the best player in the country in freshman Cooper Flagg, a 19-point, 7.5-rebound-a-game freshman whose ankle injury, the school says, will not keep him out of March Madness.

Four teams are headed to the men’s tournament for the first time: High Point, Omaha, SIU Edwardsville and UC San Diego.

Pitino, St. John’s have an interesting road

Elsewhere in the bracket, coach Rick Pitino leads his unprecedented sixth program into the tournament, and what a road he would have to take to get to the Final Four.

First, he will travel to Providence, the same building where the coach led the Friars to a surprise Final Four trip back in 1987, to lead St. John’s in a first-round game against Omaha. Pitino’s second game could come against Arkansas and John Calipari in what would be a titanic matchup between two of the game’s biggest coaching names.

Another coaching icon, Tom Izzo, leads Michigan State to its 27th straight tournament. The Spartans are seeded second and will face America East champion Bryant in its opener.

And Gonzaga is in for the 26th time, though extending its streak of making the second weekend to 10 years will be tough.

UCLA nets top overall women’s bracket seed

UCLA is the top overall seed in the women’s NCAA Tournament. The Bruins were joined by South Carolina, Southern California and Texas as the No. 1 seeds that the NCAA revealed.

It’s the first time in school history that the Bruins are the top team in the tournament. They had two losses on the season, both of which came to the Trojans.

UConn, a two-seed, are looking to end a title drought dating back to 2016 with star Paige Bueckers. They’ll have to go out west if they reach the Sweet 16 and a potential rematch with JuJu Watkins and the Trojans could be waiting in the Elite Eight.

The path for all won’t be easy: This year there’s more parity in the sport. This NCAA Tournament will be only the second one in the past 19 years to have no teams entering March Madness with zero or one loss. The other time was in 2022.

A record 12 teams from the Big Ten are in the field. The SEC has 10 and the ACC eight. The Big 12 has seven.

The Ivy League received three bids to the tournament for the first time in conference history. Last season, Columbia earned the second at-large bid in league history. The Lions are back again as well as Princeton. Both are 11 seeds and will be competing in play-in games. Harvard, which won the conference tournament, is a 10 seed.

William & Mary is one of six teams set to make its first appearance in the women’s bracket. The others are Arkansas State, Fairleigh Dickinson, George Mason, Grand Canyon and UC San Diego.

Payout time at last for women’s teams

For the first time in NCAA history, there will be a financial incentive for women’s teams. They will finally paid for playing games in the NCAA Tournament just like the men have for years.

So-called performance units, which represent revenue, will be given to women’s teams for each win they get. A team that reaches the Final Four could bring its conference roughly $1.26 million over the next three years in performance rewards.

This comes a year after the women’s championship game that saw South Carolina beat Caitlin Clark and Iowa do better TV ratings then the men’s title game.