Posted by
ChrisR on Monday, March 17, 2008 9:41:36 AM
To start off, I want to say that this seriously is the best day of the year for college hoops fans. That hour may be the best hour of television and intrigue in the year. Forget the 24 premiere, forget the Super Bowl (except this year), forget Brittney Spears' next move - Selection Sunday is the best moment of television.
So here comes some analysis. I assume everyone has already seen
the bracket. If not, go get on it - otherwise, none of this will make sense. Since I was taking notes during the selection show, this is coming in quick-hit style:
1.) Tennessee got hosed with a 2 seed. #1 RPI and #1 SOS earns you the last #2 seed, forcing them against UNC (#1 overall). Essentially, the committee is saying that this is the #8 team in the country. Ridiculous.
2.) Washington State is overseeded - this was a team ranked in the 20s in the AP polls. Now they are a top 12 team without making the conference tournament final? Not a chance.
3.) Mid-majors actually got some decent seeds this year. Butler, Kent State, South Alabama, Drake, Davidson, etc etc. They are deserving.
4.) Clemson is rated too high. This was not a ranked team who is now in the Top 25? Maybe at best.
5.) Clemson vs. Villanova should be a good game.
6.) Georgetown a 2 seed? Yea, I guess that is reasonable. Could be a dangerous 2.
7.) USC vs. Kansas State. Pitting the two top freshman in the country (by name value) against one another in a guarenteed match-up wasn't deliberate at all. OJ Mayo vs. Michael Beasley totally wasn't planned.
8.) Siena vs. Vanderbilt is a good match-up for the Saints.
9.) Oregon in? And at a 9-seed? I blogged about this a few days ago. Oregon was last of the 3 Pac-10 bubble teams and did nothing to help itself in the conference tournament. Now a 9? Absurd.
10.) Pittsburgh a 4-seed? They were not ranked a few days ago and now a top-16 team? Hotness is often overrated.
11.) St. Mary's vs. Miami should be a good match-up.
12.) Marquette vs. Kentucky should be good.
13.) Drake as a 5-seed is reasonable. I am glad this team was not over (or under) rated.
14.) Drake vs. Connecticut in the 2nd round may be the best game of the tourney
15.) Arizona? Does not belong in. I already wrote about this.
16.) Duke gets a 2? This is complete BS. And the overall #2 2-seed (6th in the nation)? This is such pro-Duke bias it is disgusting. This team was #7 before going out in the semis of the ACC tournament. I guess only in Cameron does this help a profile.
17.) Glad Xavier got a 3. That is about right.
18.) Purdue vs. Baylor should be a good match-up.
19.) Baylor only got in so that they could tell this story.
20.) There is one section where all four teams could conceivably make the Sweet 16 - Clemson, Vanderbilt, Siena, Villanova. Any of those teams can advance 2 rounds. Should be a good series.
21.) This bracket is built for upsets, unlike last season.
22.) The Big East got 8 in, which they deserve. I am happy to see the Pac-10 only got 6 (even though it should have been 5 or fewer). SEC got 6 - should have been 5 after Georgia joined the ranks; Kentucky has to be bumped out with UGA gets in. A-10 got 3 which is a lot better than the 1 they were anticipating going into the last weekend of the season.
23.) MVC only gets 1. This is what we call an OVERRATED CONFERENCE. Top to bottom strength is good to have, but these are top-to-bottom evenly matched. One tournament team means that this conference is not that good. And Illinois State didn't belong in the field, so don't even make that argument.
24.) RPIs in the 30s for snubbed Dayton and Illinois State.
25.) All of the snub-complaints are about Virginia Tech (RPI of 56) and Arizona State (RPI of 82). Nope.
26.) Seth Davis really is retarded. He says Arizona State should have gone in over Arizona. Arizona State had an RPI of 82. Arizona had an RPI of 38. Yea, keep saying that Seth Davis, and maybe you will lose your position at CBS.
27.) Wisconsin should have had Duke's 2-seed. This team won the regular season and conference tournament of a power conference. Even in a down Big 10, this was the clear-cut winner - Duke did not win the regular season nor even make the finals of the ACC tourney. Ridiculous.
28.) The bracket was a little bit skewed to avoid 1-2 rematches. Texas-Memphis. Tennessee-Memphis. Texas-UCLA. Duke-UNC. These teams were all split up to avoid rematches before the Final 4, yet it messed up the seedings as a whole because of that (see #1).
And now a general note about this tournament:
Last year's tournament was terrible. All of the good mid-major teams were matched up against other good mid-major teams. Nevada had to face Creighton in the first round, for example. Why not split these two and give each of them to a major-conference team? This year, there are only a few mid-major vs. mid-major games, and only where necessary. This year's tournament is giving the mid-and low-major teams an opportunity to make a name for themselves. Much like American Idol, where the judges realized that there is more to a singing competition, the bracket designers realized that people love the Cinderella story. People are still talking about Gonzaga, Valpo, Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and especially George Mason. Nobody cares about a #2 seed making the Final 4 over the a #4. Nobody can run down all 4 Final 4 teams from 2005, yet people can certainly tell me that Mason was in in 2006. Why? Because people like the underdog. People like to root for the little guy. When a little guy does well, or knocks off the traditional power, or scores a seemingly HUGE upset (ie a Siena over a Vanderbilt, even though the gap is not nearly as great as the seeding splits would indicate), people are intrigued. This is what gets ratings. Ohio State vs. Texas Tech is not inspiring a nation - Bryce Drew is a household name becuase of the heroics of the 1998 tournament. I am happy with this year's bracket; it is built for upsets and for good match-ups. As a basketball fan, I am very interested in many of these games. I cannot say that I felt this way about last year, with some exceptions.
Should be a great few weeks.
And if you are bored, why not check out the final RPI ratings, where snubs are denoted. Kentucky and Oregon are the lowest-RPI at-large teams, at 57 and 58, respectively. Arizona State was 82. This is no snub. A snub is RPI 34 Dayton, or RPI 42 UMass. There are 27 (!) teams ahead of Arizona State in the RPI who did not get in. This is no snub. Arizona State did not deserve to be in, plain and simple. A valid argument is how Oregon got in over Virginia Tech. Compare these numbers:
Team 1: 19-13 (10-8), RPI 56, SOS 39.
Team 2: 18-13 (9-10), RPI 58, SOS 37.
Pretty even to me. Team 1 is Virginia Tech. Team 2 is Oregon. In-conference record should have put Oregon out and VA Tech in.