How Arizona men’s basketball looks in NCAA Tournament metrics, bracket projections

It’s been more than a week since Arizona last played, falling 77-73 at Tennessee to suffer its first loss of the season. That setback dropped the Wildcats down a few spots in the Associated Press Top 25, but in the more important rankings they’re still in great shape.

The UA remains No. 1 in the NET rankings, a metric the NCAA Selection Committee uses to select and seed teams for the NCAA Tournament. The Wildcats are 74^th in strength of schedule, including 53^rd in nonconference games, and are 4-1 against Quadrant 1 and 2 opponents.

The RPI, which is what the NET replaced, has Arizona at No. 9, while KenPom.com has the Wildcats at No. 7.

BracketMatrix.com, which aggregates the NCAA tourney projections of dozens of sites and bracketologists, has Arizona as the last No. 1 seed with an average seed of 1.63. Of the 38 projections listed, the UA is a No. 1 seed in 16, a No. 2 in 20 and a No. 3 in two.

ESPN’s Joe Lunardi has Arizona as a No. 2 seed in the South Region, taking on Texas State in San Diego.

From a betting standpoint, DraftKings Sportsbook has the Wildcats with the seventh-best odds to win the national title. The Wildcats are +1800, trailing Gonzaga (+600), Duke (+800), Purdue (+850), Baylor (+1200), Kansas (+1200) and UCLA (+1600).

Arizona is scheduled to return to action Jan. 3 at home against Washington, the visit ASU on Jan. 8. It has two postponed games that need to be rescheduled, those being the ones at UCLA and USC that were supposed to be Thursday night and Sunday afternoon, respectively.