Defending national champion Villanova was rewarded for an outstanding season Sunday when it was named the top overall seed for the NCAA Division I men's basketball championship.
The NCAA committee that selects and seeds the field for the 68-team tournament placed the Wildcats (31-3) in the East Region. They will begin the defense of their 2016 title on Thursday in Buffalo against the winner of the play-in game between a pair of No. 16 seeds: Mount St. Mary's and New Orleans.
The Mountaineers (19-15) and the Privateers (20-11) will meet on Tuesday night in Dayton.
If the Wildcats can win two in Buffalo, they will move on to New York's Madison Square Garden _ the site of their Big East tournament championship victory on Saturday _ for the regional semifinals and finals March 24 and 26.
Villanova also won the Big East regular-season championship, doing so for the fourth straight season.
The Wildcats grabbed a top seed for the second time in three years. They were the top seed in 2015 but were upset in the second round by North Carolina State in Pittsburgh.
In the four seasons that current seniors Josh Hart, Kris Jenkins, and Darryl Reynolds have been on the team, Villanova has been seeded second, first, second and now first in the NCAAs.
Last season, they swept through the tournament while competing in the South Region, advancing through Brooklyn and Louisville to the Final Four, and defeating North Carolina at NRG Stadium in Houston for the championship.
The trio of Hart, Jenkins, and Reynolds are 128-16 in their careers, and 8-2 in the NCAAs.
