March Madness normally refers to the upsets and exciting finishes that take place in the annual NCAA Tournament. Yet the competition among the 68 teams selected to compete for the upcoming men’s basketball national championship will be hard-pressed to match the drama of the conference tournaments.

The selection committee on Sunday announced UConn, Houston, Purdue, and North Carolina as the top seeds for the tournament, which begins on Tuesday at Dayton. The first and second rounds tip-off on Thursday and Saturday. The Sweet 16 is set for the following weekend and the Final Four on April 6 at Glendale. 

St. John’s and Seton Hall of the Big East conference were squeezed out by the inclusion of several unlikely teams who defied the odds and earned an automatic bid by winning their respective conference tournaments.

Long Beach State earned its first trip to the “Big Dance” since 2011-2012 by capturing the Big West Conference Tournament championship on Saturday, five days after it fired its head coach, Dan Monson. The school announced last Monday that Mr. Monson would not be back for his 18th season after the 49ers lost five straight games to end its regular season at 18-14. The agreement allowed Mr. Monson to remain the head coach through the postseason, but clearly stated he “will not return in 2024-25.”

Presumably coaching his final games at Long Beach, the four-time Big West Coach of the Year guided the 49ers to improbable wins over University of California, Riverside and top seed University of California, Irvine before earning an automatic bid with a 74-70 triumph over favored University of California, Davis.

“What a great week,” Mr. Monson said. “What a privilege to have a team that has the kind of character that all year struggled to be consistent and all year struggled defensively and just be able to figure out a way for three straight games.”

The players learned of Mr. Monson’s impending dismissal and vowed to make him go out a winner. “We were trying to have our coach’s back,” Aboubacar Tradre told reporters after the game. “With him being here for 17 years, it would be really bad for him to just leave without anything. We were like no matter what we would give everything to make sure if he left, he had a championship.”

Long Beach State drew the 15th seed in the West Region and will face second-seeded Arizona in the first round. The tournament is wide open this year. All the number one seeds except the defending champion, the University of Connecticut, lost in their conference tournaments.

Mr. Monson said he is happy for his assistant coaches more than himself. “I’m blessed,” he said. “My career is great, but for my assistants, this is a great week for them to hopefully land on their feet. That’s what I worry about because their contracts are up in March. For me, that’s the hardest thing about this whole week.”

North Carolina State head coach Kevin Keatts appeared to be on the hot seat entering the Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament, where the Wolfpack were the tenth seed after a 17-14 regular season. The school, though, whose national championship in 1983 launched March Madness, became the first team to win five games in five days, including an 84-76 triumph over the top seeded North Carolina Tar Heels for the coveted title.

“Winning five games in five nights is a miracle,” Mr. Keatts told reporters at the District of Columbia. “We’ve got to get some rest because, guess what, we’re going to the NCAA tournament.”

Mr. Keatts doesn’t have to worry about his job security. By winning the ACC Tournament, he receives an automatic two-year extension.

There were plenty of other upsets that influenced tournament brackets. The University of New Mexico and Oregon earned unlikely bids. The Lobos, coached by Richard Pinto, defeated favored San Diego State to win the Mountain West, and Oregon claimed the Pac-12 title with an upset over Colorado. Iowa State, seeded seventh in their conference tournament, defeated top-seed Houston to capture the Big 12.

Meanwhile, Temple, a team that went 5-13 in the American Athletic Conference during the regular season, reached the conference tournament championship by beating highly-favored Florida Atlantic, the Cinderella team of last year’s Final Four, in the semifinals. The Owls’ dreams of making the tournament ended with an 85-69 loss to the University of Alabama-Birmingham.

Let the Madness continue.