The ACC tournament starts today — with not-very-good games, it must be conceded, but it still starts today. America is a nation that loves to check its bracket sheets on Selection Sunday night and the following Monday morning, but this week is one of the more underrated weeks of the entire sports year. So much daytime weekday basketball is going to be played over the next few days, leading into the weekend.
It’s going to be glorious… and it’s going to be pure Madness.
Speaking of March Madness… Wisconsin being a 2 seed in Kentucky’s region will have a lot of people rightfully steamed.
Here, without further ado, are the five biggest questions of Championship Week:
*
5 – BUBBLE DRAMA: HOW WILL UNIQUE RESUMES BE EVALUATED ON THEIR OWN MERITS AND AGAINST EACH OTHER?
There are typically several kinds of resumes that always seem to make their way to the discussion table on Selection Sunday. Four resumes to call to your attention are the ones owned by Texas, Tulsa, Old Dominion, and Ole Miss. Naturally, the conference tournaments will either add or remove clarity as far as their bubble fates are concerned, but simply realize that these are four distinct bubble profiles. Watch for that seeding list on Selection Sunday night, to see where the Selection Committee placed these four teams.
4 – WHAT TEAM WILL DO THE MOST TO HELP ITSELF IN TERMS OF SEEDING AND BRACKETING?
The Baylor Bears shot up to a No. 6 seed in the 2014 NCAA Tournament by making the final of the Big 12 tournament. Iowa State defeated Baylor in that Big 12 final, and the Cyclones used that tournament championship to move up to a No. 3 seed, which they parlayed into a trip to the Sweet 16. Without awful injury luck — Georges Niang broke his foot in the opening weekend of the Dance — ISU might have been able to make a deeper run.
This year, what team safely in the field will use the conference tournament to move up three or four seed lines and dramatically improve its bracket path in the NCAA tournament?
3 – MARYLAND AND UTAH: WILL GREAT HOME-COURT TEAMS SHOW THAT THEY CAN DO SOMETHING SUBSTANTIAL IN NEUTRAL-SITE SETTINGS?
The Maryland Terrapins and Utah Utes are two primary examples of teams that are incredibly hard to beat on their home floors, but which become conspicuously ordinary away from their cozy campus confines. At the Big Ten and Pac-12 tournaments, these teams have to prove to themselves and the Selection Committee that they can handle the heat of neutral-site basketball. Early flameouts will certainly lead to a loss of at least one seed line. In Utah’s case, a first-game loss (probably to Stanford) could very well mean the difference between getting a favorable geographical placement and being shipped out of region for the opening weekend of the NCAA tournament. If Utah can make the final of the Pac-12 tournament, the Utes should be able to retain a protected (top-four) seed and thereby receive a placement in Portland, Oregon, for the opening-weekend pod. If the Utes lose to Stanford, though, they would give the committee every reason in the world to move them down to a 5 or maybe even a 6, and place them at a non-Western site for the first two rounds of the Dance.
2 – ONES, TWOS, AND WHO WILL LOSE?
PART I: THE DUKE-VIRGINIA-GONZAGA CLUSTER OF TEAMS
The two biggest questions of Championship Week concern the arrangement of the top two seed lines, but not for reasons you might think.
I have said this many times over the years on Twitter, but I’ll be sure to say it here in print: No. 1 and No. 2 seeds are overrated. Favorable placements in terms of geography and bracketing matter far more than that number in parentheses next to your place on the bracket sheet.
It is the opinion of many bracketologists that Duke has surpassed Virginia in the pecking order, becoming No. 2 on the overall seed list. This would give the Blue Devils the No. 1 seed in the East region, whose regionals (Sweet 16 and Elite Eight) are in Syracuse. The South region has its regionals in Houston, a much more out-of-the-way geographical location.
The ACC tournament will very possibly be decisive in determining the slots for Duke and Virginia. If the Cavaliers can win the tournament, they might leap over Duke for the 1 seed in the East. However, here’s where things get complicated:
In terms of geography, being the 1 seed in the East is preferable for Duke and Virginia. On the other hand, will being the 1 seed in the East bring with it a tougher path to the Final Four? Gonzaga could very well be the No. 2 seed in the South. The Zags are desperately hoping for Arizona to lose its opening game in the Pac-12 tournament, which might possibly open the door for Gonzaga to become the 2 seed in the West, potentially shoving Arizona to the South. (That’s not likely, but crazier things have happened.) However, if Gonzaga does move to the South, Duke and Virginia might not have much to complain about when receiving the “non-geographical placement that’s lower in the pecking order.
Again: Seeds are not the be-all and end-all. They hold value, but in relation to the bracket paths and geographical placements. Geography helps, but it — like seedings — must also be viewed in context. Wisconsin, for instance, received a pretty darn good draw last season… in the West Region. It was good for Wisconsin to not be in the Midwest, which was the toughest region, a region Michigan — the regular-season Big Ten champion — did not win.
Wait a minute… Wisconsin benefiting by not being in the Midwest? Gee — we’ve already started addressing the biggest question of Championship Week. Let’s say more about it below:
1 – ONES, TWOS, AND WHO WILL LOSE?
PART II: DUMPED-ON WISCONSIN? ARE THE BADGERS REALLY GOING TO GET JOBBED?
Some people on this planet (no, really — they talked to me on Twitter on Sunday, while Wisconsin was hammering Ohio State in Columbus) actually think it’s no big deal that Wisconsin and Kentucky might be sent to the same region as the top two seeds.
I will not even try to reason with such people. There is no point in engaging anyone in a “First Take-style” debate… because there is no debate to have.
What’s the ONE GAME college basketball fans would like to see on that Monday night in Indianapolis four weeks from now? Kentucky versus Wisconsin. Virginia fans will have their own say, but on a national level, it’s clearly a Cat and Badger show. Last year’s national semifinal was an enthralling, high-level display, and both teams are better than they were in 2014. This is a game which should, at the very least, be a Final Four game.
The best Wisconsin team Bo Ryan has ever assembled and coached should not have its Final Four aspirations uniquely threatened by a bracket placement in Kentucky’s region… and Kentucky fans who should want to meet the Badgers in this tournament should be rightly upset that such a formidable opponent should be given to Big Blue so early in the tournament.
Let’s go beyond the emotional and populist “ought-to” arguments, however. There has to be — and is — a case which is more procedural and structural in arguing for moving Wisconsin out of the Midwest region.
It is simply this:
While geography, rematches from the regular season, and the following of other procedures all militate against the strict application of balanced bracketing principles, this remains a bracketed tournament involving more than a few teams. This is not a four-team College Football Playoff, but a 68-team event. With such a large field, it is paramount to realize that selection and seeding are hardly the Selection Committee’s only important tasks on Selection Sunday. Correctly bracketing the tournament is just as big a responsibility, and last year, awarding seventh-seeded Connecticut a Buffalo-to-New York pathway to the Final Four represented an egregious bracketing mistake, one the Huskies — to their great credit — were able to take advantage of.
In Bracketing 101 — whether it’s a basketball tournament, a football tournament, or a tennis tournament — one basic principle should always be followed: The higher the seed you are, the more favorable a path you should receive. Results can never be guaranteed, but they should be made much more likely. This is the reward of being a higher seed or, conversely, the punishment of being a lower seed. By virtue of earning and achieving and generally being excellent, you should earn a better path in a bracketed tournament. If you’re not as good, you don’t deserve as easy a path.
Critics will say that Wisconsin shouldn’t have lost to Rutgers (even without Frank Kaminsky, that should not have happened). They are right.
However, even with that injury-influenced loss to Rutgers, and even with the drop in quality on the part of the Big Ten this year, Wisconsin is hardly the weakest No. 2 seed. Gonzaga just hasn’t done anything outside of its (comparatively weak versus the power 5) conference. Kansas has lost seven times, getting blown out by Temple and tossing in losses to Kansas State and Oklahoma State. At the very least, Wisconsin belongs in the upper half of the four No. 2 seeds on that seeding line. Given that Kentucky is the undisputed No. 1 overall seed in the tournament, at the top of its seeding line, there is simply no way that an honest bracket should have UK and UW in the same region.
The Selection Committee is talking about geography, geography, geography, but it is ignoring bracketing, bracketing, bracketing.
Can anything happen — will anything happen — that will remove Wisconsin from Kentucky’s path in the Elite Eight?
It was a surprise when TCU fell from third to sixth in the final College Football Playoff rankings, despite winning a game by 52 points. Maybe college basketball will surprise us as much as college football did.
It is March, after all.
