2021 NCAA Tournament East Region roundtable, key questions

The East Region of the 2021 NCAA Tournament may be the more wide-open of all four sections of the bracket. That’s in part due to the No. 1 seed Michigan Wolverines suffering a key injury in the Big Ten Tournament with Isaiah Livers, second on the team in scoring.

That potentially opens the door for the other top seeds in the East Region, mainly Alabama, Texas, and Florida State. Each of them had different preseason expectations but with arguably the weakest No. 1 seed in the field, there will be some pressure to perform.

What’s funny is that the two biggest names in this region are in the “First Four” matchup. UCLA and Michigan State have many national championships between the two but had their fair share of struggles to barely make the field of 68. The winner will take on the No. 6 seed BYU, who has been flying under the radar in Gonzaga’s shadow.

There are other power conference double-digit seeds to watch out for, including Maryland at 10 and Georgetown, a 12 seed looking to continue its Cinderella run in March. Be careful with UNC Greensboro at 13 and that doesn’t even include the return of Rick Pitino back to the NCAA Tournament, this time with the Iona Gaels at the 15 seed.

There’s a lot to look at in this bracket, including some key storylines and topics before the first-round matchups. For this roundtable, five questions were asked to some of Busting Brackets’ writers and contributors. Here are the participants, followed by their commentary;

Anthony Brown – @ABrownSports

Will Cash – @willcash21

Adam Childs – @AdamChilds21

Jacob Stevenson – @stevejac002

Matt Melton – @matt_melton20