No. 1 showdown
Kansas-Villanova semi raises seeding question
SAN ANTONIO — Don’t mind Kansas or Villanova if the winning team starts cutting down nets tonight at the Alamodome.
In the most lopsided Final Four bracket since the NCAA men’s basketball tournament was expanded in 1985, these two No. 1 seeds will square off in what might as well be called the big boy semifinal. Barring an injury or something else totally unexpected, the winner will be favored to take the championship Monday night against either the third-seeded Michigan Wolverines (32-7) or the Sister Jean-inspired and 11th-seeded Loyola-Chicago Ramblers (32-5).
The title game is, naturally, not a topic anybody playing or coaching is very interested in discussing at this point — everyone is well-versed in taking it one game at a time. But it brings up the on-again, off-again discussion of whether the sacred NCAA bracket should be reseeded at some point to ensure the matchup between the highest seeds is more likely to take place at the end of the tournament instead of in a semifinal.
“My concern is that the very thing that makes the tournament so popular would be diminished in some way,” said Dan Gavitt, the NCAA senior vice president of basketball. “You’d set up barriers as you advance in the tournament that make it harder for the lower-seeded teams. Loyola is a great example of, hey, they had one region to play in, there were upsets in that region, and they took advantage of that opportunity.”
Some of the greatest moments in the Final Four have come thanks to underdogs such as Loyola. Two of the programs emblematic of those sort of upsets are Kansas and Villanova.
Coached by Larry Brown and led by future No. 1 draft pick Danny Manning, “Danny and the Miracles” of Kansas made it to the Final Four as a No. 6 seed in 1988 and beat No. 2 Duke and No. 1 Oklahoma on the way to the title. Three years before that, in the first 64-team tournament, coach Rollie Massimino’s eighth-seeded Wildcats shot 78.6 percent in the final to knock off top-seeded Georgetown 66-64.
And yet neither of those Final Four brackets was as lopsided as this one. This marks the seventh time since 1985 — but only the second time since 2002 — that two No. 1s have squared off in one semifinal with a guarantee they wouldn’t face another one in the final. In 1986, when LSU and Duke were in the “other” semifinal, their seedings added up to 13, one fewer than Michigan and Loyola combined.
But never have the numbers meant less in the way of predicting winners at the tournament. After a regular season with noteworthy parity, this year’s bracket included the first No. 16 seed upsetting a No. 1 seed — the University of Maryland, Baltimore County topping overall No. 1 seed and Atlantic Coast Conference champion Virginia 74-54 — and the first regional final with a No. 11 and a No. 9 seed as Loyola knocked off Kansas State 78-62.
“They might win the national championship,” Michigan coach John Beilein said of the Ramblers. “So I’m not saying that seeding is wrong. I’m just saying it’s an inexact science to try to figure out.”
In Las Vegas, they try to make setting point spreads an exact science, and the bookies have spoken. Villanova (34-4) would be a 5 1/2-point favorite over Michigan and a 9 1/2-point favorite over Loyola-Chicago, while Kansas (317) would be a 1 1/2-point favorite over Michigan and a 5 1/2-point favorite over Loyola.
Villanova is a 5-point pick over Kansas tonight, and a key matchup in the game involves Villanova’s Jalen Brunson, The Associated Press player of the year, against Devonte’ Graham, an AP All-American and the X-factor for Kansas.
“It will be a chess match with both of them,” Kansas coach Bill Self said.
Part of the beauty of the bracket as currently constructed is that both teams have known they might play each other for more than a week, so they’ve assigned assistant coaches to break down video and take copious notes about their possible upcoming opponent. It’s one element that would go out the window — to say nothing of the fact that simple-as-pie office pools would be a thing of the past — if the NCAA ever decided to reconfigure the bracket after two rounds, or four.
Bottom line: It’s sports. There’s no way to make everything perfectly fair.
“Someone asked our assistants about that, and they said, ‘Could you imagine winning a game and thinking you get so-and-so for the next game, then all of the sudden, no, you’re playing Kansas?’” Villanova coach Jay Wright said.
Tonight’s 1 versus 1 matchup, Wright insisted, was difficult enough to prepare for — even with plenty of time.