It’s only been a little while since the brackets were released.  Here are our initial Quick n’ Dirty thoughts before we’ve had too much time to over-analyze it and talk ourselves out of things.

1. UAB & VCU over Colorado & Virginia Tech? Jay Bilas nailed it in the post-selection analysis when he said that the Committee not only failed the “eye test,” but they failed the “laugh test.” Hey, we’re all for more mid-majors in the Tourney as a matter of principle.  But they should be qualified, and UAB and VCU simply were not as accomplished as Colorado or Virginia Tech this season.  As a matter of fact, VCU was so sure that they weren’t going to make the field of 68 that they didn’t even gather to watch the Selection Show — can you imagine?  Colorado defeated K-State three times, Texas once and Missouri once; Virginia Tech defeated Duke, Penn State and a host of mid-level teams — UAB beat… um, nobody?  VCU beat… UCLA?  It just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
2. How Does This Happen? The NCAA Selection Committee went against its stated principles in selecting UAB and VCU over other, more qualified teams, which is something we think is a direct result of the Committee changing members every year.  A lot of the talking heads on television have suggested adding more “basketball people” to the Committee, but where we think the system fails is because there’s a rotating group of folks picking the teams every year.  This results in RPI being valued extremely high one year, and generally ignored in another year; or playing a tough nonconference schedule is preferred one season, and lightly considered in another.  This results in a completely different interpretation of the stated criteria every single March, which causes a series of perplexed looks among all the bracketologists and fans this time of year who are generally basing their analyses on previous years.
3. Gene Smith Interview Fail.  The CBS interview with the Chair of the NCAA Selection Committee, Gene Smith, was epic in its complete and utter failure.  This shows yet another reason that the Committee should not rotate people through it so frequently.  His vague platitudes were generally incomprehensible, but he actually managed to make mention of “style of play” as a consideration that the Committee considers when looking at whether to select teams.  Surely he’s joking, right?  When asked specifically about Colorado’s resume, he answered by stating that the Buffs simply “did not have the votes to get in.”  In other news, neither did John McCain two years ago.  For such a multi-billion dollar event that captures the imaginations of a national sporting public, we HAVE to do better than this, don’t we?
4. Florida a #2 Seed? Of the teams that made the Dance, we’re still having trouble figuring out how Florida managed to move up to a #2 seed in the Southeast Region.  Were they in consideration for a #1 seed prior to today’s beatdown by Kentucky in the SEC Tournament?  The Gators are a solid team, but this is ridiculous.  They should have been at best a #3 seed and it wouldn’t have offended us if they were a #4.  The SEC was not a good conference this year, so winning 13 regular season games in it is simply not as impressive as what #3 BYU or #3 Purdue were able to do.   Don’t be surprised when Billy Donovan’s team loses in the Second Round to the winner of UCLA/Michigan State again.
5. East Region is Ridiculous.  For our money, the East is by far the toughest group of elite teams.  If the top four seeds held to Newark, you’d have the overall #1 team in the country, Ohio State, the ACC regular season champion, #2 UNC, a surging #3 Syracuse team, and the SEC Tournament champion, #4 Kentucky.  The NBA talent on these four squads crushes any other contemporary region, and all four of these teams are playing very well right now.  The next closest region, in our view, is the West.  #1 Duke having to play in Anaheim, potentially against #5 Arizona and #2 San Diego State is no fun at all (although they had a similar situation vs. Baylor last year in Texas).  Throw in #3 Connecticut, a team fully capable of running to the Final Four on the back of Kemba Walker (assuming they’re not emotionally and physically spent), and that’s a loaded field.
6. Southeast Region Not So Much.  The two flyover regions are considerably weaker at the top, with the Southwest falling into an average zone, and the Southeast looking like an unbelievably easy road for #1 Pittsburgh.  We’ve already covered the joke that is #2 Florida, but throw in a #3 BYU team without Brandon Davies, and a #4/#5 duo of Wisconsin/Kansas State, and although possible, we can’t see many ways that Jamie Dixon’s team should screw this up.  This, of course, means that someone like K-State or St. John’s will come out of this region.
7. Eleven Bids, But So What? Speaking of the Johnnies, the Big East got its expected eleven bids.  So what is a reasonable expectation for such an unprecedented number of teams from one conference making the NCAA Tournament?  For us, the answer will come by the Sweet Sixteen.  Going by seeds, just less than half (five) of the Big East teams — Pittsburgh, Syracuse, Notre Dame, Connecticut, Louisville — should still be standing at that point; and nine of the eleven should be favored to win its first round game.  However, only Pitt and ND are seeded to make the Elite Eight, and of course Pitt would meet expectations by making it to Houston.  Our fear is that even if Big East teams generally meet expectations, armchair analysts will rip the league for “only” getting a couple of teams into the E8 or one into the F4 as evidence that the league wasn’t that strong.  Wrong answer.  Although we’ll be disappointed if four or fewer teams make the second weekend, and only one gets to the regional finals.  
8. Handicapping Other Leagues.  With seven teams in the field, but three of those earning protected seeds and the always-interesting Michigan State Izzos out there, it wouldn’t surprise us in the least to see four Big Ten teams in the Sweet Sixteen, and as many as two in the Final Four.  The Big 12 got only five teams in with Colorado’s snub, but it wouldn’t surprise us if all five won a first round game and three or four made it to the second weekend.  With five teams dancing, the SEC will struggle to put more than one team into the Sweets, and we see not much of a chance beyond that.  The ACC’s four schools will rise and fall on the fortunes of #1 Duke and #2 UNC — what else is new?  The Pac-10 managed to squeeze four teams in — shocking, in some ways — but given the draws, we wouldn’t be completely surprised if two teams made it to the Sweets and Arizona could even be a darkhorse pick for the Final Four. 
9. First Four Duds.  Not sure this was the right thing to do, but we were actually excited for the potential of seeing bubble teams knocking each other senseless in the First Four games on Tuesday and Wednesday nights.  No longer.  Other than Clemson, the value of the names USC, VCU and UAB (lots of acronyms in this year’s First Four) simply isn’t as exciting as St. Mary’s, Colorado and Virginia Tech.  Since we can’t figure out exactly what criteria the Committee was using this year for the teams chosen, why not use another one — the most compelling matchups?  SMC-Va Tech and Colorado-Clemson or some combination thereof would have been better.
10. First Round Games We Can’t Wait For.  Here’s our top five must-watches for the First Round:  1) #6 St. John’s vs. #11 Gonzaga; 2) #7 UCLA vs. #10 Michigan State; 3) #8 Michigan vs. #9 Tennessee; 4) #5 Kansas State vs. #12 Utah State; 5) #8 UNLV vs. #9 Illinois.  Honorable Mentions:  #8 George Mason vs. #9 Villanova; #8 Butler vs. #9 Old Dominion; #6 Xavier vs. #11 Marquette.
11. Looking Ahead.  In the Second Round, we’d love to see:  1) #4 Texas vs. #5 Arizona; 2) #2 UNC vs. #7 Washington; 3) #4 Kentucky vs. #5 West Virginia; 4) #3 Purdue vs. #6 Georgetown; 5) #1 Kansas vs. #8 UNLV.  Sweet Sixteen: 1) #1 Ohio State vs. #4 Kentucky; 2) #2 UNC vs. #3 Syracuse; 3) #1 Kansas vs. #4 Louisville; 4) #2 Notre Dame vs. #3 Purdue; 5) #1 Duke vs. #4 Arizona.

rtmsf (3998 Posts)

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 13th, 2011 at 7:01 pm by rtmsf and is filed under 2011 ncaa tournament. Tagged: acc, big 12, big east, big ten pac-10, colorado, ncaa tournament, sec, uab, vcu, virginia tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.