So you really think the NCAA is kinder to mid-majors these days?

I'm sure Schnellenberger would have loved to coach at his alma mater, but he was just getting Louisville to the point where it was competitive. And even with Denny Crum around, Schnellenberger at least was able to command a sizeable presence at Louisville. I'm not sure he could have done that at UK, especially with Rick Pitino on board.

And your skin shouldn't crawl when you say or type Bill Curry. He was a solid coach and in the same mold as Jerry Claiborne. UK went for an anti-Curry/Claiborne when it hired Hal Mumme. The Wildcats are just now recovering from the mess he left seven years ago.

 

No slotting mid-majors. Period. They'll earn their spots.

George Mason proved it last year. Winthrop may not be done proving the same this time around. This isn't an attempt to keep the mid-majors down, but rather let them earn their stripes like everyone else.

Yes, it's no secret I'm an ACC fan. No, I don't agree with Billy Packer. I still love that Phil Martelli glad told Billy where he could go on a live network broadcast.

 

The entire tournament is designed to keep the mid-majors down.
Why not give them a fighting chance by putting them in at 12, and playing a five, instead of a 1-16?
So a team like Corpus Christi has a legit shot at winning the first round by playing a team that isn't so heavily favored.

 

Agreed. There have been times where mid-majors (Camby UMass, St. Joe's, Gonzaga, etc.) merited higher spots than the bottom half of the seeds for sure. For the most part, the committee did a decent job putting the mid-majors with the correct seeds this time.

I just didn't like seeing Butler-Old Dominion and Nevada-Creighton. I didn't like seeing mid-majors knock out one another in the first round. I love matchups like Winthrop-ND or VCU-Duke. Matchups like USC-Arkansas and VaTech-Illinois? Pass.

 

Then I hope you also have an idea for those teams to get their at-large status back. That might possibly be the worst idea I've heard in a long time. It's not just bad teams from smaller conferences that lose by 20 or more year to year. What happens if Stanford makes the next two tournaments and loses by the same margin again? Should they be barred from all future tournaments, too?

 

Looks like the seeding was pretty good this year. Most of the 12s to 16s got clobbered.

 

How would you have seeded the field, then? Someone has to be the 15 and 16s. And if the tournament was intended to keep mid-majors down, how to explain Southern Illinois at 4 and Butler at 5, even though Butler probably should have been a 6 or 7?

 

So then are you advocating some sort of mid-major affirmative action? Why should it matter whether Butler plays ODU or Arkansas? If one's a 5 and one's a 12, it's a fair matchup. Those schools aren't two of the 300 Spartans, they're two teams that want to go as far as they can, whether that means beating North Carolina and Florida or Eastern Kentucky and Jackson State.

 

No mid-major affirmative action, though I believe there ought to be more attention to detail. You know how we accuse of the selection committee of rigging brackets -- the Ben Howland bracket, Ohio State to play Xavier today, etc. Well, have them pay a little attention to the bracket for TV's sake.

A 5-12 matchup is fair, no matter the opponent. But how tough would it have been to swap ODU with Arkansas or Illinois to create two more BCS/mid-major games? Or Creighton with Texas Tech? Not very.

I wouldn't call that mid-major affirmative action, either, because there's a chance none of the mid-majors win games. With this year's matchups, we knew either Butler or ODU would advance and that Nevada or Creighton would advance. I just don't think it made for a better tournament because it took away some of the contrast from the matchups.

 

But 5 vs. 12 is always contrast. Left on their own, casual fans aren't going to distinguish between, say, Southern Illinois and Albany. But you quantify it with a numbered seed, and you've told the story they wouldn't have bothered to get on their own. Butler, as a 5, is a strong team. ODU, as a 12, is an underdog but is also good enough to win. The reason Butler-ODU didn't feel special is because Butler probably wasn't worthy of its 5, and you can make the case ODU deserved better than a 12 (as the resident ODU grad here, I can say it's a fair seed, but the case CAN be made). Had this been the Butler of November and December, it'd be a different matter.

And even the good BCS vs. mid-major games (Duke-VCU, Notre Dame-Winthrop) were 6-11 matchups in which a bunch of people were picking the 11s. VCU and Winthrop winning counted as upsets, but nowhere near on the level of Richmond-Syracuse or Hampton-Iowa State.

 

We're not supposed to have Richmond-Syracuse or Hampton-Iowa State every year, are we? Last No. 2 seed to lose was Iowa State in 2001, and that Hampton team probably should have been seeded higher, given its talent. Winthrop nearly beat Tennessee last year, but let it go late.

But to me, some of the appeal to the tournament is having mid-majors play BCS opponents. Look at how the running Day 3 thread has begun ... the focus is on VCU because it beat Duke. Tomorrow the focus will be on Winthrop because it beat a ranked Big East team. Not the biggest upsets, but they do generate a buzz. Had Stanford beaten Louisville or Arkansas beaten USC, that same buzz wouldn't be there.

Just the same as conference opponents cannot play until the regional finals, there probably ought to be more consideration -- not a rule, but at least more consideration -- to avoiding BCS/mid-major matchups when you can. If the BCS teams win those games, fine, they deserve it.

I just didn't like seeing the Nevada-Creighton and Butler-Old Dominion matchups, period.

 

How about something like this:

The selection committee ranks the 16 best and 16 worst teams and seeds them accordingly. Those 32 teams are then paired against each other in appropriate brackets (i.e. top 1 vs. worst 16... top 1 and worst 4 in same bracket... worst 2 and best 3 in same bracket, etc.).

The remaining 32 teams are then slotted according to region.

Aside from this year (and a couple years ago) 12 seeds are usually competitive with the 5s. And I've always thought that there's little difference between a 6 and an 11 seed. There's an even smaller difference between 7 and 10s and no difference in 8 and 9s. So, then, why not lump all those teams together and just pair them according to region?