- Facebook: If you haven’t seen this, it’s really cool. Facebook put together a county-by-county map of college basketball fans by conference, by team (in each region), and by rivalry. The caveat is that it only includes teams that made the NCAA Tournament. That means two regular powerhouses –Kentucky and Texas — weren’t included. But the maps make it very clear that North Carolina and Duke are the two dominant national brands in the Big Dance this year (I expect Kentucky would join them if they weren’t NITing it). The ACC owns a huge portion of the country — including much of the west, Alaska, Hawaii and Big East country (minus Kentucky and upstate New York). It’s also amazing to see just how regional NC State’s pull is (a couple tiny counties in Virginia and South Carolina are the only ones repping the Wolfpack out of the state). My only wish is that Facebook had a better visualization because otherwise this is gold.
- Awful Announcing, NY Daily News, LA Times: Don’t fret NC State fans — pick your poison. ESPN released its newest addition to the 30 for 30 series with a profile of the 1983 NC State national championship team, Survive and Advance. The documentary has gotten nothing but tremendous reviews (with the one exception of this “bah humbug” critique that doesn’t make a lot of sense). The ESPN family of networks will be re-running the film throughout the month (upcoming showtimes can be found on the movie’s home page), and it’s the perfect way to bring in the wonders of March Madness.
- Fox Sports South, Charlotte Observer: It’s no wonder the ACC media felt snubbed after the Selection Committee dealt it a seemingly tough hand only hours after watching one of the best college basketball games of the year. The reasons for the committee’s harshness seem obvious — though not consistent with years past: they emphasized bad losses, regular season and tournament titles, a strong non-conference schedule, and road success; they ignored the effects of injuries and marquee wins.
- USA Today: It wasn’t just the local media surprised by the ACC’s seeding and snubs. Three of the “seven” (the final one just commended the Selection Committee for doing a good job) surprises involved ACC teams. The biggest surprise was that Duke and Miami were each relegated to a #2 seed while Gonzaga and Kansas each got #1 seeds. Truthfully, the reasoning for awarding the Bulldogs a top seed sounds like what the committee would say, but I don’t agree with it. Essentially they disqualified Duke for not winning the ACC regular season or tournament title and then disqualified Miami for having bad losses. That’s a cop out. However, far more troubling was the decision to put North Carolina in Kansas’ bracket (scheduled to play in the Third Round). This is a rematch from last season’s Elite Eight, and I believe Roy Williams when he says playing Kansas makes him feel physically ill (he even wore Kansas gear to the National Championship in 2008!). That’s totally unnecessary when it’s rather easy to move #8 and #9 seeds around.
- Sports On Earth: Duke is the ACC representative in what Will Leitch names the 2013 NCAA Tournament “Region of Death.” The Midwest Region has seven (!) of the top 20 teams from Ken Pomeroy’s rankings. It has the number one overall seed, a team many believed worthy of a top seed, a Michigan State team no one wants to count out for many reasons, a would-be favorite sleeper Saint Louis team, and a woefully underseeded Oregon team (which is another area where the Selection Committee clearly ignored the impact of injuries). That’s brutal, but should be fun.
EXTRA: Want to know why you see so many of the same faces in stripes? It’s because NCAA referees are essentially freelancers. The top officials work upwards of 100 games a year, a ludicrous workload when you consider the brutal travel that can accompany the job. The good news is that the ACC shells out good money for its officials, giving the conference more leverage on what sort of schedule they can work. The bad news is there’s not a good solution to the problem unless conferences hired officials for the season, which seems unlikely.