Duke has best road in NCA A
No NCAA tournament bracket is perfect. The tournament selection committee that makes it isn’t perfect, the group almost certainly made up of overall quality folks who surely have some prejudices or ignorances.
So to find no fault in this year’s 68-team field would seem to be almost as impossible as picking a perfect bracket, which according to DePaul professor Jeff Bergen carries odds of 1 in 128 billion, though others project it as high as 1 in 9.2 quintillion, a figure that actually contains 18 zeroes.
That said, overall — excepting the relatively easy draws of Duke and Gonzaga until the regional finals and South No. 2 seed Kentucky’s potential second-round game with 30-game winner Wichita State — this might be as fair and balanced a draw as has been seen in the past decade.
Well, unless you were Syracuse and you were left out despite wins over three top-10 foes. Or you’re Rhode Island and you have to travel to Sacramento to play your firstround game. Or you’re Kansas and you’ve inexplicably been stuck with a potential Sweet 16 game against fellow Big 12 Conference member Iowa State (and also found fellow conference brother Oklahoma State in that same Midwest Regional despite each of the other three regionals containing but one Big 12 team).
Beyond that, how would you like to be ACC members and in-state rivals Virginia and Virginia Tech and possibly meet in the Sweet 16, though Tech would have to upset defending national champ Villanova in the second round to play such a game?
But perhaps that’s too much negativity.
For as Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim — who has as much right as anybody to be negative this year, though he did go all the way to the Final Four last season while probably getting in that field with a worse résumé than this year’s model: “I think anybody, and I mean anybody, can win.”
To expand on that, he mentioned Middle Tennessee State University, which shocked the world last year as a No. 15 seed by knocking off No. 2 seed Michigan State, then gave Boeheim’s bunch a pretty tough tussle.
MTSU earned a No. 12 seed this time around, and you wonder if it shouldn’t
have been higher, since the Blue Raiders (30-4) crushed Vanderbilt 71-48 on Dec. 8, and the Commodores not only made the Big Dance as a No. 9 seed but also became the first at-large team to make the field with 15 losses (against 19 wins).
Of course, as CBS analyst Seth Davis noted Sunday while referring to the seeding, “We’ll be looking at the teams on the 12 and 13 (seeding) lines, because that’s where the magic happens.”
And the history of No. 12s over No. 5s should certainly give hope to MTSU against fifth-seeded Minnesota on Thursday in Milwaukee. Only once in the past 16 tourneys has a No. 12 failed to post at least one win over a No. 5, and that was back in 2007. Moreover, two No. 12s last season — Yale and Arkansas-Little Rock — knocked off Baylor and Purdue, respectively.
“Wichita State and Middle Tennessee should have been seeded higher,” said Charles Barkley early Sunday evening, no doubt mindful that college hoops metrics guru Ken Pomeroy has had Wichita State as high as eighth nationally. And that’s not an eighth seed. That’s No. 8 overall.
And you could certainly make a case for the Blue Raiders and Shockers being worthy of a sixth or seventh seed. You could also make a case for Duke — with three straight ACC tourney wins over foes ranked in the Top 25 — being a No. 1 seed, because the Blue Devils beat No. 1 seed North Carolina twice.
Maybe they should be. But as Boeheim said, this has been a year of remarkable parity. There’s North Carolina with a No. 1 seed and seven losses. There’s UCLA with a No. 3 seed despite road wins over No. 2 seeds Arizona and Kentucky.
And while the South Region — North Carolina, Kentucky and UCLA — would seem to be overloaded, Kansas in the Midwest with dangerous Miami, Louisville, Iowa State, Oregon, Purdue, Michigan State and Michigan (What? They couldn’t toss the entire Big Ten in the Midwest?) might seem to be the Region of Death.
But again, aside from Duke — which, if the seeds hold, would have to knock off Troy, South Carolina and Baylor (not exactly a trio of lions and tigers and bears, is it?) to reach the East final — no one has it all that easy.
To borrow one line from selection committee chairman and Michigan State AD Mark Hollis: “We had 20 teams who finished No. 1 in their conference (regular season) also win their (league) tournament. Last year we had 11.” So who wins it? Look for Arizona and the Atlantic Coast Conference trio of Duke, North Carolina and Louisville to advance to the Final Four in Glendale, Ariz. Expect the Dookies to knock off the Cactus Cats and the Cardinals to shock UNC
Then expect the Blue Devils to deliver coach Mike Krzyzewski his sixth NCAA crown by defying all odds in knocking down 14 3-pointers inside a football stadium to finish the season as they started it — No. 1.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com.