NEW ORLEANS, March 11 (UPI) -- Kentucky, North Carolina, Syracuse and Michigan State were the top seeds when the field was announced Sunday for the NCAA Basketball Tournament.
The four teams will open play against the 16th and final seeds the opening rounds of their respective regional.
Syracuse (31-2) was placed atop the East Region and will face the University of North Carolina at Asheville.
Kentucky (32-2) tops the marquee in the South and will face the winner of Wednesday's play-in game between Western Kentucky and Mississippi Valley State.
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Michigan State (27-7) heads to the West and opens against New York's Long Island State University-Brooklyn.
North Carolina (29-5) is top seed in the Midwest and faces the winner of the Lamar vs. Vermont play-in.
Kentucky and North Carolina were given top regional seeds despite losing in their conference finals Sunday. The Wildcats fell to Vanderbilt 71-64 in the Southeastern Conference Tournament title game and Florida State won the Atlantic Coast Conference championship with an 85-82 win over Carolina.
Michigan State won the Big Ten Conference title Sunday with a 68-64 win over Ohio State.
Ohio State was seeded second in the East Region and Kansas was seeded No. 2 in the Midwest. Duke is seeded second in the South and Missouri got the No. 2 seed in the West.
Baylor, Florida State, Georgetown and Marquette are the No. 3 seeds. The fourth seeds went to Indiana, Wisconsin, Michigan and Louisville.
Defending NCAA champion Connecticut (20-13) was seeded ninth in the South Region.
March Madness play commences Tuesday with play-ins between Mississippi Valley State and Western Kentucky, and Iona vs. Brigham Young. The title game will be played April 2 in New Orleans.
