Thoughts on NCAA tourney?
March 12th, 2007I haven’t had a chance to look over the bracket in detail, but I did notice that Illinois and Southern Illinois will meet in the second round, if they each win in the first round. That’s going to be more difficult for Illinois than it is for SIU. Have those words ever before been uttered in human history?
Anything interesting you’ve noticed about the pairings? What did the selection committee get wrong?
Horns all the way
I think that overall the committee has done one of the better jobs that they have done in recent years. I might differ slightly on some of the middle seeds, but they have set up some interesting matchups.
Gonzaga vs Indiana should be a good game.
I heard a couple of people in Carbondale last night talking about how SIU will easily beat Illinois should they play inj the second round. I think they’re dreaming, and I’m no Illinois fan. On a first run through, I filled out a bracket with Florida beating North Carolina to win it all. That could change over the next couple of days.
I think Texas A&M got a good bracket with Penn and then the Louisville-Stanford game. They will probably get to sweet 16 to face Memphis and the final 8 to face Ohio State.
In the last week, what team has looked stronger than Georgetown? Big, fast, lights-out shooting…they’ve got it all.
I am not at all pleased with the selection committee’s choices this year. It’s pretty clear that they kissed BCS butt again this year. Non-BCS invitations have gone down every year for the past four years: 12, 9, 8, and this year, 6. And this is the year after 11th seed, non-BCS George Mason made the Final Four.
The Missouri Valley, ridiculed by BCS lovers Packer and Nance this time last year, put 2 teams in the Sweet Sixteen last year while the Big Ten put 0 in the Sweet Sixteen. ZERO. So this year the Big Ten gets 6 teams in the Dance while the MVC got how many? 2.
The Missouri Valley is the 6th ranked RPI conference. The Big XII is 7th. Yet, the Big XII got 4 teams in.
But some argue that the Valley just can’t play on the same level as the BCS schools. Well, let’s look at the records this year…
MVC record against the BCS conferences (victims in parantheses):
Big East: 4-0 (DePaul, Rutgers, Syracuse, St Johns)
Big Ten: 4-4 (Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa 2x)
Big XII: 3-1 (Iowa St 3x)
SEC: 1-1 (LSU)
ACC: 1-2 (VaTech)
Pac 10: 0-1
Yeah, you might say, but with the exception of Wisconsin and VaTech, those aren’t exactly the best BCS teams.
OK, then consider this…
Record vs Top 25:
5-1
Another thing…the committee has set the brackets up to immediately reduce the non-BCS teams in the field: SIU-Holy Cross, Butler-ODU, BYU-Xavier, and Nevada-Creighton. SIU, Butler, BYU and Butler have all been top 20 teams late in the year. The rest of the non-BCS teams in the field are matched up against higher BCS seeds. I show all this to point out that they have done all they could possibly do to stack the deck against a non-BCS team making a deep run.
Seth Davis understood the crappy job this year and declared, “This is not good for college basketball.”
Ladies and Gentlemen, some doesn’t smell right. You know why? Hint: Follow the $$MONEY$$. The bottom line is this: the NCAA tournament is not set up to be fair, it is set up to make $$$. Period.
BCS schools have larger followings than the mid-majors. That means more people watching, which makes the advertisers happy.
CBS and the NCAA have been in bed together for years because March Madness is a Big, Fat, Cash Cow.
Just as greed has nearly ruined baseball, give it time and it will do the same for March Madness.
Rant over.
Can we all pray for Brett’s bitterness now?
Just call him Mara!
Jason,
Don’t get the mara thing, but you are very gracious:
Bitterness is an understatement.
I think the Salukis have an excellent chance of beating the Illini; if they play in the second round. With the #5 seed Illinois is a perfect pick for a first round upset.
I’m an IU fan, and their play away from Assembly Hall has been horrible. I do think, however, that they are capable of beating the Zags. And this is a good year to draw the Zags.
I just want teams who dont finish .500 in their league to not be eligible for the NCAA, that way we wouldnt have to look at a 8-9 Duke team or 7-9 (9-10 if you count the tourney) Arkansas team. The troubling thing I heard on PTI the other night and Joe Lunardi said he expected Kentucky and Duke to be 8 or 9 seeds, Tony K. said why even put them in then, they are DUKE and KENTUCKY and they deserve better - I mean if so many people are upset to see “mid-majors” in the tournament (6 out of 34) maybe we should have large school and small school tournaments? I am just tired of seeing average major conference teams (this year would be Texas Tech, Illinois, Arkansas, etc) get bounced from the first round year after year — Texas Tech is the 5th place team from the 7th rated conference - Missouri State is the 3rd place team from the 6th rated conference –
Oops! I messed up. Illinois is a #12, but I don’t think they’ll knock off the Hokies. Although, I never thought they’d beat IU twice this year either.
Three teams - guess who they are without checking it out– league record in parenthisis - non-conference sos listed since that is what teams are able to control —
Team 1 - 22-10 (12-6), 36 rpi, 3-5 vs. 1-50, 6-4 vs. 51-100, non-con. sos 42 –
Team 2 - 23-8 (13-5), 43 rpi, 3-4 vs. 1-50, 4-2 vs. 51-100, non-con. sos 8 –
Team 3 - 21-11 (9-7), 44 rpi, 3-6 vs. 1-50, 6-3 vs. 51-100, non con. sos 92 –
It’s awful tempting to Google, but I didn’t…
Team 1 - Missouri State?
Team 2 - Drexel?
Team 3 - Kentucky?
Close
1 and 2 are correct –
3 is your number 9 seeded Purdue Boilermakers –
All teams are close in all statistical categories — except for SOS, for the committee to preach and preach about going out and challenege themseleves looks like they rewarded another Big 10 team resting on the fact that they are in the big 10 and looks like they totally forgot about Drexel — maybe if those two teams played in the big colonial or big valley….
Brett —
I would also like to add one more win for the MVC vs. the Big 10 –
Indiana St. beat Purdue 89-70 on Dec. 28th
Greg -
Very interesting. Well, then, that would make it…
Missouri Valley’s advantage 5-4
Indiana State is not exactly an MVC powerhouse either.
I’m pulling for the Memphis Tigers. Last year they predicted that the Tigers wouldl be the first number 1 seed to fall to a 16. This year, we are getting about the same amount of respect. Could Memephis be the most overlooked 2 seed of the tournament?
Greg,
I think you are right. I’m a IU/Big 10 guy, but the Big 11 did not earn six spots in the Tournament; three definitely, maybe four - not six.
Mara was Naomi’s chosen name in Ruth when she came back from Moab…
…sorry for the obscure joke…
First instinct: It won’t even be an upset when 12 Arkansas downs 5 USC in the first round.
I haven’t seen one Texas A&M game this season, and experts keep saying they could win it all. I feel left out.
Memphis was given a good spot to make another run to the elite eight. Go Tigers!
You know Texas A&M is good if it appears on Sport’s Illustrated Writes Bracket list 6 out of 7 times. Those 6 writers chose them to go to the Final Four. 1 Writer chose them for the Final Two. That is saying alot.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/basketball/ncaa/specials/ncaa_tourney/2007/writer.brackets/index.html?cnn=yes
Also, my college, Winona State University, has won 55 games in a row plus last year’s 2006 NCAA Division II championship is going again to the national tournament.
http://www.startribune.com/150/story/1053114.html