Florida
Auburn, Duke, Houston, Florida Earn NCAA Tournament No. 1 Seeds
Auburn player of the year candidate Johni Broome and the Tigers are the No. 1 overall seed in the … [+]
Duke and Auburn topped the national rankings the last two weeks, and the NCAA men’s basketball tournament selection committee saw no reason to stray.
Auburn (28-5) was given the No. 1 overall seed in the 68-team field despite losing to Tennessee in the semifinals of the Southeastern Conference tournament, based on its body of work. Auburn has 16 Quad 1 wins, three more than any other team in Division I, while playing the second most difficult schedule.
Duke (31-3), Houston (30-4) and Florida (30-4) are the other No. 1 seeds. All won their conference tournaments — Duke in the Atlantic Coast, Houston in the Big 12 and Florida in the SEC.
Duke enters the NCAA tournament with uncertainty around star freshman and likely NBA 2025 No. 1 draft choice Cooper Flagg, who suffered a left ankle injury in a quarterfinal victory over Georgia Tech and did not play against North Carolina or Louisville.
Cooper Flagg’s left ankle injury did not prevent Duke from winning the ACC tournament. (Photo by … [+]
“It’s full speed ahead,” Duke coach Jon Scheyer said. “Our goal is for Friday (return), and it is his goal as well.”
It did not seem to matter. Duke fellow freshman Kon Knueppel had 63 points in the three ACC tournament games.
Duke earned its 15th No. 1 seed, tying Kansas for second-most overall. North Carolina, the last at-large team in the field according to the selection committee, has been a top seed 18 times.
Auburn and Michigan State are the 1-2 seeds in the South Regional, Duke and Alabama are 1-2 in the East, Houston and Tennessee are 1-2 in the Midwest and Florida and St. John’s are 1-2 in the West.
The East and the Midwest regional winners meet in the national semifinals, as do the South and West winners. The Final Four is in San Antonio, Texas, on April 5 and 7.
The SEC Makes a Statement
Auburn and Florida headlined an SEC assault — a tournament-record 14 SEC teams made the field, shattering the previous record of 11 set by the Big East in 2011, the first year field was expanded to 68 teams.
Florida rolled through the stacked SEC tournament field to win the postseason tournament. (AP … [+]
The SEC received four of the top eight seeds, and it seems fair. The SEC is ranked No. 1 in both the NCAA RPI rankings and the analytic site Kenpom. Auburn was No. 1 in the AP Top 25 for seven weeks and Tennessee was No. 1 for five. Florida and Alabama reached as high as No. 2, each blocked by Auburn.
The other SEC seeds: Kentucky (3) Texas A&M (4), Ole Miss (6), Missouri (6), Mississippi State (8), Georgia (9), Oklahoma (9), Arkansas (10), Vanderbilt (10), Texas (11). Texas has a playin game against Xavier on Wednesday
Four SEC teams have eight or fewer losses despite playing in the toughest league in Division I.N o other conference can boast that season-long success. The conference has 16 members, and 14 of them had at least 19 wins.
The Big Ten, led by No. 2 seed Michigan State, has eight teams in the field. The Big 12 has seven and the Big East has five. While Duke is seeded on the top line, there are only four ACC teams in the field. The Mountain West also had four.
No. 1 Seed Tournament History
Seeded on the top line does not guarantee success, but it is a good place to start. No. 1 seeds have won six of the last seven tournaments and nine of the last 12.
UConn, the top seed in the tournament in 2024, beat Purdue for its second consecutive championship after winning it all as a No. 4 seed in 2023. The Huskies were the eighth team to win back-to-back titles, and they were the first overall No. 1 seed to win it since Rick Pitino took Louisville to the 2023 title, although that was later vacated because of NCAA violations.
Kansas, Baylor, Virginia, Villanova and North Carolina were No. 1 seeds when they won the championship from 2017-22. The 2020 tournament was cancelled because of COVID.
No. 1 seeds have meet in the championship game three times since 2017. UConn and Purdue were No. 1 seeds a year ago. Baylor beat fellow No. 1 Gonzaga in 2021 and North Carolina beat the Zags in 2017.
What Does KenPom Say?
Analytics guru Ken Pomeroy, a former U.S. government meteorologist, revolutionized the use of statistics as a predictor of success in the NCAA tournament in the early 2000s, and his rankings are recognized as the industry standard.
Since 2001, 95.7 percent of the NCAA tournament champions have ranked in the top 22 in the KenPom adjusted offensive efficiency and 91.3 percent have ranked in the top 32 in adjusted defensive efficiency.
Nine teams are in both camps entering the tournament, including all four No. 1 seeds Duke, Auburn, Houston and Florida. The others are Alabama, Gonzaga, Iowa State, Tennessee and Wisconsin.
Duke has the best combined marks — third on offense and fourth on defense. Houston and Florida are the only other teams in the top 10 in both. Florida ranks first in offense and 10th on defense. Houston is 10th on defense and second on offense.
Who Was Squeezed Out
North Carolina (22-13) was an often-problematic 1-12 in Quad 1 games. A team is credited with Quad 1 win for a home victory against a team ranked 1-30, a neutral site win against a team ranked 1-50 and a road win against a team ranked 1-75.
West Virginia (19-13) was 6-10 in Quad 1 games, with wins over NCAA tournament teams Gonzaga, Arizona, Kansas and Iowa State. Indiana (19-13) was 4-13 in Quad 1 wins, including wins over Michigan State and Purdue.
The Tar Heels’ lone Quad 1 win was against UCLA, but the committee cited its 8-0 record in Quad 2 games. North Carolina athletic director Bubba Cunningham was the chairman of the selection committee, but he recused himself when the Tar Heels were discussed.
The Vero Beach Police Department took a man into custody May 8 in connection with a threatening phone call directed toward a business.
The agency received information at 5:21 p.m. May 7 about a threatening call to Thrive IRC Inc. at 2300 5th Ave. in Vero Beach, according to a news release. The call included someone threatening to come to the business with an AK rifle and “light the building up.”
Detectives began investigating the threat and identified Michael Sean O’Brien, 27, of Vero Beach, as the person associated with the phone number used during the call.
O’Brien was taken into custody at about 3:30 p.m. May 8 without incident. He was charged with the false report concerning the use of firearms in a violent manner, which is a second degree felony, according to the news release.
O’Brien was booked in the Indian River County Jail at 6:13 p.m. May 8 but was released at 1:36 p.m. May 9 after posting the $5,000 bond, according to the jail website.
No additional information was available the afternoon of May 9.
Olivia Franklin is TCPalm’s trending reporter. You can contact her at olivia.franklin@tcpalm.com, 317-627-8048 or follow her on X @Livvvvv_5.
Charmaine Hickey, of Lang Realty in Port St. Lucie, was named in KNOW Women’s “100 Women to KNOW in America” list.
A Treasure Coast woman was named in a “100 Women to know in America” list for 2026.
KNOW Women is a global media company dedicated to giving women leaders connections and visibility. The company released a list of “100 Women to know in America” for 2026 to highlight the most influential women in business and leadership.
Charmaine Hickey, who works for Lang Realty in Port St. Lucie, was on the list.
“Charmaine’s recognition on a national stage like this comes as no surprise,” said Scott Agran, president of Lang Realty in a news release. “Her leadership, integrity, and commitment to both her profession and her community exemplify what this award stands for. She represents the very best of our industry.”
Hickey holds many industry designations and is known for her expertise in complex real estate transactions, as well as her client-first approach defined by honesty, patience and attention to detail, according to the news release.
Her community involvement includes serving on nonprofit boards, mentoring emerging leaders and supporting initiatives focused on education, women, families and youth.
“I am truly honored to be recognized among such an inspiring group of women,” said Hickey in the news release. “This award reflects not just individual achievement, but the power of community, mentorship, and lifting others as we grow. I’m grateful to be part of a network of women who are building meaningful impact every day.”
To see the full list go to theknowwomen.com.
Olivia Franklin is TCPalm’s trending reporter. You can contact her at olivia.franklin@tcpalm.com, 317-627-8048 or follow her on X @Livvvvv_5.
A Florida surgeon who is facing criminal charges after allegedly removing a patient’s liver instead of his spleen has said he is “forever traumatized” by that person’s death.
In a deposition from November that was recently obtained by NBC, 44-year-old Thomas Shaknovsky described the death of 70-year-old William Bryan as an “incredibly unfortunate event that I regret deeply”.
Bryan died after the botched surgery; and in April, a grand jury in Tallahassee indicted Shaknovsky on a charge of manslaughter.
“I’m forever traumatized by it and hurt by it,” Shaknovsky added, also saying that wrong-site surgeries can happen “during difficult circumstances”.
The deposition provided Shaknovksy’s first detailed account of the operation that killed Bryan and eventually garnered national news headlines.
According to Shaknovksy’s deposition, after removing Bryan’s liver, the surgeon instructed a nurse to label the organ as a “spleen” – and he also identified it as a spleen in Bryan’s postoperative notes. Shaknovsky later said he had been “mentally compromised” at the time of Bryan’s death, explaining that he was “devastated, demoralized, crying over his passing, felt that I failed him”.
A lawsuit filed by Bryan’s widow, Beverly Bryan, accuses Shaknovsky of medical malpractice. The suit alleges that he “wrongfully omitted any reference to Mr Bryan’s liver being removed in order to ‘cover up’ his gross negligence/recklessness and to hopefully avoid the embarrassment due to such derelict care”, as NBC reported.
In April, the Walton county sheriff’s office said in a statement that Shaknovsky’s actions inflicted on Bryan “catastrophic blood loss and the patient’s death on the operating table”.
Shaknovsky’s deposition testimony described the chaos in the operating room after Bryan began bleeding extensively, causing his heart to stop. Medical staff performed chest compressions, and Shaknovsky attempted to find where the bleeding was coming from.
“I couldn’t tell the difference because I was so upset,” he said, referring to the organ he mistakenly identified.
“It was like a overflown sink that’s clogged up, and I am looking for a fork at the bottom, trying to feel and find the bleed, and I was not able to do so,” Shaknovsky said. He added: “After 20 minutes of struggling – desperately trying – to save his life, that’s when the wrong-site event took place.
“It’s a devastating thing, which I will have to live with the rest of my life,” Shaknovsky said in the eight-hour deposition reviewed by NBC. “I think about it every single day.”
After the medical team was unable to resuscitate Bryan, Shaknovsky said he went to the hospital’s medical library. “I went there to cry because I was devastated,” he said. “I didn’t want the staff to see me like that.”
Despite a spleen typically being significantly smaller than a liver, Shaknovsky said he believed Bryan’s spleen was “double the size of what is normal” because of a mass on it. Beverly Bryan’s lawsuit, however, states that a medical examiner told her that her husband’s spleen was anatomically “nearly normal”, according to NBC.
Shaknovsky would face up to 15 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000 if eventually convicted as charged.
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