1 Overall Seed In The 2025 NCAA Tournament – Who Cares? Unless you’re a weak team that’s going home soon anyway, seeding is kind of irrelevant.

Over at ClutchPoints.com, Joshua Valdez argues that Duke can get the #1 seed if things work out just right and that they could get a dream bracket.

Meanwhile, down at Auburn, nepo baby Steve Pearl counters with an argument for why the Tigers should be the #1 seed.

Our take?

It’s a cool thing to be able to say you’re the #1 seed overall but having said that…they can have it.

It really doesn’t make much difference.

First, the “dream bracket” thing usually ends on Day One. Let’s look at 2023 for some great examples.

Purdue was the #1 seed in the East. No one outside of Farleigh Dickinson’s locker room thought the diminutive Knights could pull that off – but they did. That opened the bracket up for #9 FAU.

Houston had a great path in the Midwest. Didn’t matter – #5 Miami knocked them out by 14. Great news for #2 Texas, right?

Nope – Miami tagged them too.

How about #1 Kansas in the West? After beating #16 Howard, the Jayhawks lost to #8 Arkansas.

There is no such thing as a perfect bracket because it’s impossible to know who’s hot or who is going to emerge as a March hero.

It’s all speculative still, but look at Joe Lunardi’s projected East bracket: Duke is #1 and would likely play the winner of UConn vs. Georgia.

BYU, Maryland and High Point are in the Providence sector of the bracket. Iowa, Marquette, San Diego State also loom. Arkansas and UCLA are in there too.

Perfect bracket? Imperfect? Who cares!

Think Danny Hurley wouldn’t like a shot at Duke? How about Maryland? Is everything people are saying about BYU’s rise true?

The speculation is a lot of fun and gets a ton of clicks, but the reality is this: the better teams will emerge and the pundits will look stupid about two hours in. They always do.

All anyone can do is focus on what’s in front of them. Coaches and teams obsessed with seeding are also obsessed with failure.

The simple truth of a single elimination tournament is that the best teams emerge and if you’re one of them, you’ll have to play them to advance. There’s no point in looking for an easy path because there is none, and you really shouldn’t hope for one.