11 non power conference bids? Topic

girt25
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I also think it's totally BS that #6 Murray gets a relative home game in Kentucky against (I'm assuming) Marquette. 

A worse seed should never be able to play in their home state. It should be a rule. (Or maybe even home state AND within X number of miles of campus.) I think it's ridiculous.
3/12/2012 7:28 AM
wronoj
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if we're going there, what about the potential Kansas-UNC game in St Louis? Not exactly a Heel-friendly crowd there. Or WV-Gonzaga in Pittsburgh? 

But I don't think they can really worry about it to that extreme.
3/12/2012 9:44 AM
asher413
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IIRC- the committee only protects the top 4 seeds in the first rounds from biased locations.  In the case of UNC, I think they decided they would rather go through St. Louis than out west... and then later down the line Kansas ended up out there too.
3/12/2012 11:01 AM
coach_billyg
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the committee dude (hathaway or whatever his name was) said they put the 2 seeds where they did partially for regional purposes. like, the worst 1 seed and worst 2 seed are in the same bracket - it should be the opposite. i really don't mind kentucky getting the 2nd best 2 seed duke, but i think the committee should have done a better job not putting 4 vs 8 - thats too unfair. also, i am obviously biased, but i don't think you put the defending national champion UCONN who has been inconsistent but has beaten some serious opponents, against the overall 1 seed. give us like, creighton or some ****. although, i guess UCONN had to play us a few years back when they were the 1 seed, and we gave them all they could handle. but they weren't the overall 1 seed, either, IIRC.

i DO think the committee made a good call, putting UK in atlanta, or as its better known in the big blue nation, CATlanta (owing to the fact that each year, the CT was there, and the crowd was as blue as the sky), instead of st louis. definitely benefits UK there. also, if they had put UK there, versus KU potentially, that would have been a massive screw up. you simply can't give the #1 overall seed such a bad situation in their elite 8 game if it goes chalk , and clearly, IMO at least, UNC got that one. otherwise, i felt UK got shafted with their 4 seed (indiana) and 8 seed (uconn) and got a solid 2 seed (although, no UK fan will complain about getting to see UK/Duke in the elite 8, should it happen - which it probably wont). so at least the committee got that 1 thing right for them.
3/12/2012 11:44 AM
wronoj
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hell, i'd much rather play UConn than Creighton... but that's a matchup thing. UNC-KU in ATL would have been fine by me, or UNC-anyone there. But I'll worry about those matchups when/if we get there, not now. Hoping for the Carolina-Kentucky rematch, but man that seems a long way off.
3/12/2012 12:15 PM
professor17
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Posted by salag on 3/11/2012 7:52:00 PM (view original):
Marquette playing BYU/Iona in the 2nd round, Belmont a 14! Both of those 14 seeds could very well win.

I don't like how the NCAA puts mid-majors against each other in the first round. VCU/Wichita State...Murray St/Colorado St...New Mexico/LBSU. Attrition for the non-power conferences. 

Gonzaga is a higher seed but travelling to Pittsburgh to play West Virginia? Syracuse looks like they should roll into the Elite 8. Not sure how St. Mary's is a 7 seed, looked like a 6 to me.

Overall, I like it, outside of UW Huskies not making it and Iona in.
I couldn't disagree more about Syracuse. I think Kansas St., Vanderbilt and Wisconsin would all be really bad match-ups for Syracuse. Not to mention that the Orange have barely been scraping by for many of their last dozen games or so. Syracuse is a team that has the talent to go to the Final Four, but also could lose to anyone... even UNC Asheville.
3/12/2012 1:12 PM
girt25
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billy, UConn has the big name, but the reality is that they just haven't been very good this year.

wronoj -- I agree, UNC got the shaft with potential game against KU in St. Louis.

And you can't micromanage, but I think you can follow one simple maxim:

Worse seeded teams should not be playing virtual home games

 

3/12/2012 1:23 PM
alblack56
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Is there some unwritten rule that Duke and North Carolina stay instate until the Sweet 16? It seems like every season they play 2 games in Greensboro  or Charlotte. They have no right to complain about going to St. Louis

And, Is it really a virtual home game for Kansas in St. Louis? It's 250 miles from St. Louis to the Kansas state line and even further to Lawrence
3/12/2012 1:52 PM (edited)
alblack56
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Posted by girt25 on 3/12/2012 7:28:00 AM (view original):
I also think it's totally BS that #6 Murray gets a relative home game in Kentucky against (I'm assuming) Marquette. 

A worse seed should never be able to play in their home state. It should be a rule. (Or maybe even home state AND within X number of miles of campus.) I think it's ridiculous.

Do you know where Murray is?  It's actually closer to St. Louis than to Louisville.  And, the last 30 miles to Murray is on 2-lane country roads.  It's no picnic driving to Louisville from there.

3/12/2012 1:58 PM
wronoj
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Posted by alblack56 on 3/12/2012 1:52:00 PM (view original):
Is there some unwritten rule that Duke and North Carolina stay instate until the Sweet 16? It seems like every season they play 2 games in Greensboro  or Charlotte. They have no right to complain about going to St. Louis

And, Is it really a virtual home game for Kansas in St. Louis? It's 250 miles from St. Louis to the Kansas state line and even further to Lawrence
al, come on with the mileage... If we're going mileage, a UNC-KU game in DC or Baltimore would likely be a home atmosphere for whom? How about ATL? Both ~300 miles from Chapel Hill...

it's not as much of a home game as KC would be, but it's not far from it. Certainly moving KU to Boston, or ATL (and Duke to Boston), would have been more logical.

Basically, KU and Mizzou shouldn't have ended as 2s in St Louis. But it doesn't matter-- we are nowhere near that matchup happening, and it'll still be won on the court. And the NCAA rules try to do home edge only for 1-4 seeds in the first and second rounds.
3/12/2012 3:58 PM
cburton23
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Playing close to home at this time of year doesn't mean a whole lot.  The environment is so sterilized, once in the arena you really have no clue where you are other than the name of the city on the court.  The bands and cheerleaders switch off who gets a turn on the court and a chance to play their fight song, and so many of the tickets are divided up between the 4 teams and corporate sponsors that a fan advantage is minimal, especially on the first day.  Besides the big name schools travel so well they have fans no matter where they go. 

The only real advantage to location of games is in travel time.
3/12/2012 4:05 PM
professor17
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Posted by cburton23 on 3/12/2012 4:05:00 PM (view original):
Playing close to home at this time of year doesn't mean a whole lot.  The environment is so sterilized, once in the arena you really have no clue where you are other than the name of the city on the court.  The bands and cheerleaders switch off who gets a turn on the court and a chance to play their fight song, and so many of the tickets are divided up between the 4 teams and corporate sponsors that a fan advantage is minimal, especially on the first day.  Besides the big name schools travel so well they have fans no matter where they go. 

The only real advantage to location of games is in travel time.
I agree with you with about the early round games. And when a favorite finds itself on the ropes, the crowd swings heavily towards the underdog. But the regional final sites can have a decided home-court feel. I was at the 2003 Elite Eight game between #1-seed Oklahoma and #3-seed Syracuse, which was played in Albany, NY, roughly 140 miles from the SU campus. That game was controversial because Oklahoma was the higher seed, but had to play Syracuse in their own back yard. And I can tell you first-hand that the atmosphere of that game was not all that different than if it had been in the Carrier Dome. The game was pretty much non-competitive, with SU winning 63-47.
3/12/2012 5:41 PM
sctrojanx
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Posted by bscoresby on 3/12/2012 7:28:00 AM (view original):
Posted by sctrojanx on 3/12/2012 1:36:00 AM (view original):
I'm not much of a basketball fan. As my screen name implies, I went to SC but we are not a basketball school. Further I'm not one of those folks who root for the rest of the conference if we don't get in. 

That said, I've got a gripe with Washington being left out. They won the conference with a 14-4 record. Yes, the PAC12 is down this year. Yes, they knew the "rules" of the conference tourney winner getting the automatic bid, etc. Nothing against Iona, BYU or even Cal but those teams getting into the tournament implies they would have done more than Washington did in winning the conference. Cal clearly couldn't, even beating Washington head to head they finished lower than them. Same with Colorado. As much as I love mid-major teams and recognize the quality they have, I have a hard time believing BYU or Iona would have won the PAC12 regular season. 

In all though, with 68 teams getting in, Washington and all the rest going to the NIT can surely point to a few games they let slip away and know they could have made it really easy to get picked for the big dance. 
They did do more- Washington had 0 top 50 wins.

Each of the other teams you mentioned had at least one top 50 win.
So one top 50 win trumps 3 months of quality to win your conference? To me that's bs. 

If the criteria was handled more like college hockey's pairwise than I might buy it but to me there is way to much emphasis on SOS instead of achievements on the court. 
3/12/2012 6:12 PM
Iguana1
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Iona doesn't have any top 50 wins.
they did play Purdue close on a neutral site and routed #104 Maryland back in November.
The top RPI win was at home to #66 Nevada  Their best road win was at #94 Denver.

I do like Washington over Iona as they had a couple close losses to top 10's, but they also had a blowout loss at home against South Dakota State.
And the Huskies loss to the lowest RPI team came at an inopportune time, in the Conf Tourney to Oregon State.
3/12/2012 6:58 PM
jbasnight
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Posted by wronoj on 3/12/2012 3:58:00 PM (view original):
Posted by alblack56 on 3/12/2012 1:52:00 PM (view original):
Is there some unwritten rule that Duke and North Carolina stay instate until the Sweet 16? It seems like every season they play 2 games in Greensboro  or Charlotte. They have no right to complain about going to St. Louis

And, Is it really a virtual home game for Kansas in St. Louis? It's 250 miles from St. Louis to the Kansas state line and even further to Lawrence
al, come on with the mileage... If we're going mileage, a UNC-KU game in DC or Baltimore would likely be a home atmosphere for whom? How about ATL? Both ~300 miles from Chapel Hill...

it's not as much of a home game as KC would be, but it's not far from it. Certainly moving KU to Boston, or ATL (and Duke to Boston), would have been more logical.

Basically, KU and Mizzou shouldn't have ended as 2s in St Louis. But it doesn't matter-- we are nowhere near that matchup happening, and it'll still be won on the court. And the NCAA rules try to do home edge only for 1-4 seeds in the first and second rounds.
At least Kansas would have to win to get there. I agree with al: It seems like UNC and Duke get to play their first two games in the state of NC at least every other year.
3/12/2012 8:34 PM
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