Chris Reynolds explains how injuries, health impacted NCAA Tournament seeding

When you reach this point of the season, everyone has dealt with or is currently still dealing with health concerns or injuries. Still, Chris Reynolds, the chairman of the selection committee for the NCAA Tournament, made sure to emphasize just how much they impacted the field of 68.

With several top teams hampered, Reynolds said it matters a ton. He listed off several Top-4 seeds who are dealing with player or coach injuries that the committee had to consider leading into the bracket reveal.

“(It affects seeding) a great deal,” Reynolds said. “When you think about it? You have Texas, Tennessee, Virginia, UCLA. All have player availability issues. And, also, Coach Self being out? It’s something that the committee talked about throughout the course of the year. It certainly played a factor in seeding and selection.”

Let’s run off the issues those teams that Reynolds listed are specifically having to handle. For Texas, it’s the health of Timmy Allen considering he missed the entire Big 12 Tournament with a leg injury. For Tennessee, it’s obviously Zakai Zeigler as the sophomore point guard’s season was ended by a torn ACL. After that, the Cavaliers lost forward Ben Vander Plas in a practice last week to a hand fracture. Finally, UCLA was dealt two brutal hands with an achilles injury from Jaylen Clark as well as Adem Bona picking up a shoulder injury in the Pac-12 Tournament semifinals.

However, the most impactful could be the return of Bill Self to the sidelines for the Jayhawks. After missing the Big 12 Tournament due to a hospitalization and ‘standard procedure’, it appears he will be back in time to coach No. 1 seeded Kansas in the West Region.

All of these teams are capable of overcoming these injuries, whether they’re short-term problems or of the season-ending variety. Even so, they will only make their specific journeys to Houston that much more difficult.