There's a reason Selection Sunday has captivated audiences for years. It's not just about seeing which bubble teams made the cut, which ones have a play-in game in Dayton, or even which teams won't be dancing at all this year.

Everyone wants to see the path their favorite team has to the Final Four. And if you're making your own bracket, you want to see the path each 1 seed has to be the champion of their region and of the whole thing.

Matchups matter on the floor. Off of it, potential matchups matter just as much for forecasting how bracket scenarios will play out.

So, with that in mind, let's look -- through our nERD metric (which measures the number of points we'd expect a team to win by against an average one on a neutral court) -- at which of the 1 seeds has the scariest, toughest journeys to the Final Four this year.

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