Kansas Jayhawks are No. 3 seed in NCAA Tournament. Here’s who’s in their bracket
Kansas’ men’s basketball team has been awarded a No. 3 seed in the 2021 NCAA Tournament West Regional and will meet 14th-seeded Eastern Washington in a first-round game on Saturday, it was announced Sunday on CBS.
The game will tip off at 12:15 p.m. at Indiana Farmers Coliseum in Indianapolis and broadcast on TBS.
The winner of the KU-Eastern Washington game will advance to a second-round game against either USC, Wichita State or Drake on Monday. Time and location of the second-round game in Indiana are to be announced.
WSU and Drake, both 11 seeds, will play in the First Four at 5:27 Thursday night (TBS) at Purdue’s Mackey Arena with the winner to meet No. 6 seed USC at 3:30 p.m. Saturday (TNT) at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.
“To think where we were six weeks ago thinking we just hope to get in to being a 3-seed,” KU coach Bill Self said, “is a pretty strong statement as to how much our team got better and players improved in the last 1/3, 1/2 of the season.”
Self’s Jayhawks enter the NCAAs with eight wins in their last nine games after losing three straight in January.
“I think they feel good about themselves,” Self said. “Not good in a way we have accomplished anything yet, but in a way, ‘So far so good. Now we’ve put ourselves in a decent position. Now we need to take advantage of this opportunity.’’’
The No. 11-ranked Jayhawks (20-8), placed second in the Big 12 regular season and won one game at the Big 12 Tournament before withdrawing because of what KU called a positive COVID-19 test within the men’s basketball team.
KU’s David McCormack and Tristan Enaruna were not in KC for the tournament after it was announced Tuesday they had entered into COVID-19 protocol. It was not revealed if either tested positive for COVID-19 or if the two players were in the protocol for contact tracing.
This story was originally published March 14, 2021 at 5:19 PM with the headline "Kansas Jayhawks are No. 3 seed in NCAA Tournament. Here’s who’s in their bracket."
