Life in the bubble: Brackets set for return of March Madness

The biggest mystery leading into a March Madness bracket reveal more than a year in the making had little to do with bubble teams or top seeds. Instead, it was the not-so-simple matter of which programs would be healthy enough to play.

Kansas and Virginia, two programs hit with COVID-19 breakouts over the past week, made it into the bracket released Sunday by the NCAA selection committee, signaling both teams believe they'll have enough healthy players to be ready for their tip-offs next Saturday.

That there was any doubt about the Jayhawks and defending champion Cavaliers securing spots in a 68-team tournament that was canceled last year as the COVID-19 virus mushroomed into a worldwide pandemic was the most jarring reminder that the 2021 tournament itself is no sure thing.

All 68 teams will gather in Indiana for all 67 games — no wondering who's heading West to Boise or who's going South to Memphis — beginning Thursday and ending April 3 and 5 with the Final Four. But all it takes is a single COVID outbreak to upend the finely calibrated beauty of that plan. More than one and the entire endeavor could crater.

There was no surprise about the overall top seed. That was Gonzaga, which starts as the 11-4 favorite to win it all and become the first team since the 1976 Indiana Hoosiers to finish a season undefeated.

Among last teams to earn the 37 at-large bids — one more than usual because the Ivy League canceled play this year — were Drake and Wichita State. But even teams that don't make it should hang on a few more days. They could find their way into the bracket if a team in the field notifies the NCAA by Tuesday night that it must withdraw because of health concerns. After that, if a team pulls out, its opponent will advance via what is essentially a forfeit.

Fittingly for such an unpredictable season, some teams hoping to sneak in off the bubble were denied when Oregon State and Georgetown — coached by its own former superstar, Patrick Ewing — won their conference tournaments to steal bids they wouldn't otherwise have won.

Another unexpected entry is a familiar face: Rick Pitino. The coach, ousted at Louisville after a sordid recruiting scandal that enveloped the program for years, led his new team, Iona, from the ninth seed in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference all the way to the league title and the automatic bid that comes with it. Iona played only 13 regular-season games because of COVID-19 concerns that sidelined the Gaels for weeks. It was that kind of season.

Virginia and Kansas were never in doubt until the coronavirus hit both programs. The Jayhawks (20-8) will bring a No. 3 seed into the tournament's West region — the NCAA stuck with the usual names of the regions — while the Cavaliers (18-6) will be a 4 seed in the same part of the bracket, and come in as the most unusual of defending champions.

They won it all in 2019, and were poised for the run at a repeat last March when sports got wiped off the map by the still-nascent pandemic.

A year later, sports are back, but the hoops the NCAA is jumping through to make this tournament go are a symbol of how far we are from normal.

The decision to place all the games in and around the Indianapolis area is a first-of-its-kind move. Also unique are the quarantine-like situations all teams will be under during their stay. Players will get their own rooms and teams will have their own floors in a cluster of hotels around the downtown convention center. That facility, usually a magnet for fan fests and coaching conferences, will turn into the main practice and meeting area for all the teams. Players will have to produce seven negative tests before tip-off next week in order to be eligible to play.

And if they're not? In one of its most eye-grabbing tidbits, the NCAA announced that if a team is hit with the virus but still has five players who can pass the protocol, that's enough to get on the floor for tip-off.

All just another piece of the puzzle for Americans to consider when they get back to a much-missed rite of spring — filling out their brackets, crossing their fingers and waiting for madness to begin.