Both Lunardi and Parrish updated their brackets today.After sweeping the Arizona schools on the road, UCLA moves up to the top line in both brackets. Amazingly, they are still getting completely screwed over in both cases.
In Lunardi's bracket, Kansas is the two seed. Anecdotally, I think these are the two best teams in the country, and the numbers agree with this. I understand Tennessee, Memphis and UNC have pretty RPIs, but raise your hand if you think Tennessee is better than Kansas. This probably won't last, since the Bruins and Jayhawks will both be favorites to win their conference tourneys. But it really would be a shame if these two teams met in the Elite 8 for the second year in a row. (And what would be even more annoying is if UCLA won, and people got to continue the "Bill Self just isn't a good enough coach to get his team past the E8" nonsense.)
Parrish has Duke as the 2 seed in the West, and Wisconsin the 3. This is actually a pretty good draw for UCLA; I would love to see Paulus try to guard Collison, that'd be amusing. But the 2/3 seeds wouldn't matter if UCLA fell short of the Elite 8, and that's entirely possible in the proposed bracket, since Louisville is the four seed.
What does this team have to do to get some respect? They were not impressive in non-conference play, but they had a good excuse- they were missing their best player. In Padgett's first game back, they lost to Cincinnati by 1. In 17 games since, they are 15-2 and have outscored their opponents by 11.5 ppg. They are the best team in the Big East. The books have certainly caught on; they were favored by 7.5 against Notre Dame (this did not end well), and 11 against Villanova. I almost hope they lose @Georgetown on Saturday, so they continue to be overlooked. This is a really good team.
Xavier is now a 2 seed in both brackets. They have a big game @St. Joseph's on Thursday; if they lose that one, I would imagine they'll fall down to a 3.
Parrish has Butler as a 4. The same seed as Louisville. If these two teams met on a neutral court tomorrow, how many points would the Cardinals be favored by? Nine? This whole process really amazes me sometimes.
After splitting their two games this weekend, Washington St. moves up to a 6 seed in both projections. I still think they will end up higher than this. They host Washington on Saturday, and then will likely be the 3rd seed in the Pac-10 tourney. The Cougars should end up being at least a 5.
Parrish has Miami (FL) as a 7 seed. I will be picking against them in the first round; I don't even think it matters who their opponent is. Their non-conference is weak (Pomeroy has their non-con schedule as the 263rd most challenging). They are 7-7 in the ACC, but five of those seven wins have come by three points or less. Four of their seven losses have come by double digits. Some will look at this and say they know how to win close games. I will choose to conclude that they are not very good.
Photo by: me. (We had pretty good seats yesterday.)
4 comments:
I think my head is going to explode if on selection sunday, virginia tech gets in over syracuse. Considering this is all he does Lunardi should really be better at it. It's clear all he does is look at conference standings and RPI b/c a quick look at what virginia tech has done shows that they are absolutely terrible.
It won't happen, but imagine being a #1 seed with Butler and Vandy as the 4/5's and K St and West Virginia as your 8/9's.
You'd actually have to be considerably more worried about your 2nd round opponent than you would be about your Sweet 16 match up.
It sucks that the committee spends so much time figuring out teams 60-65. If they aren't careful with seeding this year they could end up putting some of the high seeds at a really big disadvantage. It's definitely happened in the past.
Again, I am just going off of Parrish's hypothetical seedings, but if New Mex and Butler hooked up in a 4 vs. 13 game, New Mex could easily be favored.
We've seen that in recent years at the 5-12 line, but not that I can ever remember in a 4-13 game.
That'd be something else.
I kind of wonder what Xavier's lines will look like. They would obviously be dogs against the Big Six we seem to have established (UNC, Tenny, Memphis, UCLA, KU, and that pesky 4 seed Louisville). But if they play Texas, what does that number look like?
I can't see them being favored against Duke, but they could potentially be a short dog and a good spot for us.
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