BIG UPDATE: Thanks to the Commenter who pointed out my historical flaw: Both the '93 Michigan team AND the '96 UMass team were 1-seeds who vacated Tournament wins. That basically makes my post moot, except to the extent that it is amusing that John Calipari has now led two Tournament 1-seeds unable to make it out of the 1st round of the Tournament.
Lost in the various opinions about Memphis having to vacate the 2008 season is this:
For the first time in the history of the 64-team NCAA Tournament, a 1-seed did not advance out of the 1st round.
Yes, this is a bit of semantic yoga: Technically, the 16-seed did not BEAT the 1-seed -- logically flawed but logistically necessary, the NCAA says "vacating" a win doesn't mean that the opposing team is suddenly credited with the win, rather than merely "losing" the loss.
However, it does mean that -- in the history books -- Memphis the 1-seed did not advance to the 2nd round and, thus, became the first-ever 1-seed to fail to advance out of the 1st round of the 64-team men's NCAA Tournament.
If you found "vacated wins" to be unsatisfying and are looking for a bit more historical humiliation to lay on Memphis, I think this might be the best bet.
Congratulations, University of Texas-Arlington.
-- D.S.
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1 comment:
You missed one point in this post. This is actually the third time a number one seed has failed to make it out of the first round. 1993 Michigan was a #1 seed and had its wins vacated due to the Ed Martin scandal. 1996 UMass also was a #1 seed and had their tourney victories vacated as a result of the Marcus Camby scandal.
The more interesting note is that Coach Calipari now has twice failed to lead a #1 seed out of the first round.
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