Sunday, March 11, 2007

Sunday 3/11 Quickie:
Selection Day!

It's Selection Sunday, and forget seedings: The most important things to watch for are (a) specific matchups and (b) geography. (Who wouldn't rather be a 3-seed playing in a region close to home than a 2-seed shipped a few time zones away?)

Buzzer-Beaters 1: Miami (Ohio)'s buzzer-beating 3 to come from behind and win the MAC tourney title and put themselves in the NCAA Tournament is the reason we all watch countless hours of Championship Week coverage.

Buzzer-Beater 2: FAMU's win was, too, except that was on ESPNU, to the only time most fans probably saw it was on replay. Only slightly less thrilling, but a heart-stopper nonetheless.

Final thoughts:

Georgetown has earned a 1-seed (they'll get a 2).

I'm all for an ACC result that makes the regular season comically meaningless. An NC State win will absolutely bump a Bubble team. And how can you not root for Sidney Lowe in that jacket?

Florida will have earned a 1-seed if they continue to obliterate the rest of the SEC (win or lose, they'll get a 2 and love it).

The winner of Ohio State-Wisconsin deserves a 1-seed. The loser deserves a 2. But since the conference times their tournament final until the very final minutes before the bracket comes out, both will probably get 1-seeds. (Consider it a karma payback for scheduing the Ohio State-Michigan football game two weeks before the SEC title game.)

Oregon has earned a 2-seed (they'll get a 3).

If Kansas wins, they will be a 1-seed. If Texas wins, they will be the hot bracket pick to win the national title.

UNLV's win over BYU (plus their Top 10 RPI) should make the Rebels a hot Sweet 16 pick.

It all depends on matchups, though. And we'll find those out soon enough.

-- D.S.

22 comments:

Unknown said...

Ladies(?) and Gentelmen, I give you... My Bracketology

Here is a list of bids by conference that you can use as a quick reference to count bid by bid:

Category A: Auto-Bid is the only Bid
America East – Albany
Atlantic Sun – Belmont
Big Sky – Weber State
Big South – Winthrop
Big West – Long Beach State
Ivy – Penn
Metro Atlantic – Niagara
Mid Continent – Oral Roberts
Mid-Eastern – Florida A&M
Northeast – Central Connecticut State
Ohio Valley – Eastern Kentucky
Patriot – Holy Cross
Southland – Texas A&M Corpus Christi / Northwestern State
Southwestern – Jackson State
Sunbelt – North Texas
West Coast – Gonzaga

Category B: Auto-Bid with other(s) on the bubble
Colonial – Virginia Commonwealth (champ), Old Dominion and Drexel (bubble)
Mid-American – Miami (OH) (champ), Akron (bubble)
Southern – Davidson (champ), Appalachian State (bubble)

Category C: Auto-Bid with other(s) that are lock(s)
Atlantic 10 – George Washington (champ), Xavier (lock)
Big 10 – Ohio State / Wisconsin (champ), Ohio State / Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan State, Illinois, Purdue (locks)
Horizon – Wright State (champ), Butler (lock)
Western – New Mexico State (champ), Nevada (lock)

Category D: Auto-Bid with other(s) that are locks and other(s) that are on the bubble
Atlantic Coast – North Carolina / North Carolina State (champ), North Carolina (if needed), Virginia, Virginia Tech, Maryland, Boston College, Georgia Tech, Duke (locks), Florida State (bubble)
Big East – Georgetown (champ), Notre Dame, Louisville, Villanova, Pittsburgh, Syracuse (locks), West Virginia (bubble)
Big XII – Texas / Kansas (champ), Texas / Kansas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech (locks), Oklahoma State, Kansas State (bubble)
Missouri Valley – Creighton (champ), Southern Illinois (lock), Missouri State (bubble)
Mountain West – UNLV (champ), Brigham Young (lock), Air Force (bubble)
Pacific 10 – Oregon (champ), Arizona, UCLA, Washington State, USC (locks), Stanford (bubble)
Southeastern – Florida / Arkansas (champ), Florida (if needed), Kentucky, Tennessee, Vanderbilt (locks), Arkansas (if needed), Mississippi State (bubble)

So there are 61 bids locked up. If NC State and Arkansas win though there will be 63 locked up. This could be bad, because as you can see, the bubble still includes 12 teams.

Danielle said...

Guy, that was impressive. Though I am concerned that it was done so early this morning!

The heroin sheik said...

Dan I am sure you with the rest of gator nation will agree with me in wondering why the gators haven't been able to play as solidly as they have the last few games all season. Were they saving themselves for the tournament? They are playing really well and I think most college bball fans would agree that if they can play the way they have the last three games they will be the favorite to win it all again. They have the experience, the depth, and the talent to destroy any team they face.

The best part of brea.ing my hand is that I can only work the slow days at work mon-wed so I get to park in front of my tv and watch as much bball as I can for the next three weekends.

Know why the devil rays are the best team in baseball? two words. Don Zimmer. That guy is the man. Hell he even made the cubs winners.

At least the lightning are bringing a winning vibe to the tampa bay area. I mean hell the storm lost to the preds in the opener last week. Preds fans are even more obnoxious than michigan and OSU fans.

RevScottDeMangeMD said...

Where is Rafael? We need to clebrate!

Miami RedHawks baby!

Luke Bell said...

Consider it a karma payback for scheduing the Ohio State-Michigan football game two weeks before the SEC title game.

Yeah sure, if the "karma" includes an automatic berth in the title game. How do you go from saying seeding doesn't matter to saying it is some sort of retribution from the football season? Come on, Dan.

Jayhawk 4 Life said...

Guy--

You forgot Conference USA, auto-bid of Memphis. Don't know how that changes your predictions...

Unknown said...

Hail to the buff! (Buff!)
Hail to the blue! (Blue!)
Hail to the buff and blue!
All our lives we'll be proud to say
We hail from GW.

Go big blue!

Oh by George,
We're happy we can say
that we're GW
and we're here to show the way.

So raise high the buff! (Buff!)
Raise high the blue! (Blue!)
Loyal to GW!
You bet we're loyal to GW!

Fight!

The heroin sheik said...

M:an the gators looked good today. Of course the SEC kinda sucks this year so maybe a 20 odd point win isn't as impressive as it appears.

The busch race was pretty wild yesterday. I hope the nextel race is as crash-tastic today. Maybe it is the new tires but damn it seemed like there was a crash every five laps yesterday.

Pacman gets accosted by a knife wielding "fan". Shame he didn't put pacman out of his misery. Most likely he is going to not be with the Titans next year but how quickly do the bengals sign him?

Poseur said...

The FAMU game was on ESPN Classic. Just saying. Because I was able to watch it.

Do the games today suck out loud or what?

Unknown said...

Bright light city gonna set my soul
Gonna set my soul on fire
Got a whole lot of money thats ready to burn,
So get those stakes up higher
Theres a thousand pretty women waitin out there
And theyre all livin devil may care
And Im just the devil with love to spare
Viva las vegas, viva las vegas
Viva, viva las vegas

REEEEEE-BELS!!!! REEEEE-BELS!

Unknown said...

And now that UNC-NC State is over, here's my final 65. If they're not on there, they're NIT bound.

1 seeds: Ohio State, UCLA, Kansas, North Carolina
2 seeds: Florida, Wisconsin, Georgetown, Memphis
3 seeds: Oregon, Pittsburgh, Texas A&M, UNLV
4 seeds: Texas, Southern Illinois, Washington State, Notre Dame
5 seeds: Virginia Tech, Louisville, Nevada, Creighton
6 seeds: Maryland, BYU, Marquette, Tennessee
7 seeds: Virginia, Butler, USC, Nova
8 seeds: Duke, Boston College, Xavier, Vanderbilt
9 seeds: Indiana, Michigan State, Kentucky, Arizona
10 seeds: Georgia Tech, Purdue, Winthrop, Syracuse
11 seeds: VCU, Kansas State, Texas Tech, Stanford
12 seeds: Illinois, Gonzaga, Davidson, NM State
13-16 are Lunardi's projections (Holy Cross, Wright State, Penn, GW/Albany, TAMUCC, Oral Roberts, Long Beach/Belmont, Miami Ohio, Niagara, EKU/Weber State, Central Connecticut, North Texas, FAMU, Jackson State)

Unknown said...

If the KU-UT game keeps up as is, Texas will be higher than a 4 that's for sure.

I love UNLV but I think they're a 4 and very well could screwed with a 5 seed. Personally, I would love a 4-13 matchup of UNLV-New Mexico State (Theus taking on the team he starred for).

kway34 said...

Where's all the love for Wisky now? I thought they were clearly better than OSU and would win easily on a neutral court?

Unknown said...

Yeah...who said Wisconsin was the better team? I think tOSU showed that that was a blatant lie.

And the way Texas has played thus far, a 3 seed might not be a stretch (switched with UNLV). Too bad the brackets are almost certainly done.

Texas will definitely be a team I'm considering for the NC.

morgank2 said...

If NCAA refs allow OSU to play like they played today they won't be beat. Oden is unstoppable when he doesn't get called for over the back or any fouls on the blocks he has with body contact.

Danielle said...

I guess that debate is over.

Unknown said...

HOW is UNLV a 7?!?!?!?!?!?!

Unknown said...

Hooray for ODU being in...but how in the hell is UNLV a 7?!? A 3 might have been high...but a 7???

Hank said...

Shouldn't the play-in, er, opening round game be the last two at-large teams that get in?

Ingrid and Jim said...

I like that my Trojans are a 5 seed in that I expected a 6 or 7...

but the classic 5/12 upset scares me. As does Texas in the second round.

ToddTheJackass said...

Why is Ohio St. in the South and Florida in the Midwest? Shouldn't it be the other way around?

ToddTheJackass said...

Big stories are Syracuse and Drexel out. ACC got seeded pretty high, with Maryland, Virginia (look at the RPI), and BC probably being a bit higher than we should be.

Good luck to everyone with their brackets. I know I'll be smarter this time and predict George Mason to the Final Four THIS YEAR. I've learned my lesson... [shakes head]...