The NCAA Tournament bracket has been released and the Princeton Tigers will take on the North Carolina Tar Heels in the South regional first round.
By: T.J. Furman
The NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament Committee has paired Princeton University with the University of North Carolina in the tournament’s first round.
The Tigers are a No. 15 seed in the South region. The game against the second-seeded Tar Heels will be Friday in the Louisianna Superdome in New Orleans.
North Carolina, ranked No. 6 in last week’s Associated Press poll, sports a 25-6 record after being routed by Duke Sunday in the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament final. The Tar Heels had been projected by many basketball observers to be the top seed in the South. That honor instead went to Michigan State.
The Tigers won the Ivy League after compiling an overall regular season record of 16-10. This will be Princeton’s first trip to the tournament since 1998 and its fourth since 1996.
In 1996 the Tigers shocked defending national champion UCLA, a No. 4 seed, in the first round before falling to Mississippi State. In 1997 California defeated Princeton 55-52 in the first round. The 1998 squad earned a No. 5 seed and easily defeated UNLV in the first round before losing to Michigan State.
Princeton clinched the automatic berth and the Ivy League title with a convincing 68-52 win over rival Penn last week. The Tigers finished league play with a record of 11-3.
Related information:
Tournament bracket (GIF format from the NCAA finalfour.net)
Tournament bracket (PDF format from the NCAA finalfour.net)
Requires Acrobat Reader. Download it free here.
NOTE: These Web sites are not affiliated with The Princeton Packet, Inc. The Princeton Packet, Inc. is not responsible for their content.