Six of the top 15 teams and ten of the top 25 in Friday’s bracket lost this weekend. That has caused a bit of a shakeup near the top of the bracket.
Not at the very top of the bracket however, Purdue is still the overall No. 1 despite blowing a late lead in a loss at Northwestern on Sunday. The Boilermakers will not hold that spot much longer though if they do not figure out how to take care of the ball. Double-digit turnovers in the first half at Indiana and the second half against the Wildcats cost them those games. Purdue has turned it over at least 16 times in three straight games. They are at Maryland on Thursday, which forced 15 Boilermaker turnovers in a three-point loss at Mackey Arena last month.
Alabama remains the second overall seed. The difference between the Crimson Tide and Purdue is the Boilermakers’ performance against better teams and Alabama’s loss to Oklahoma, which is not in the bracket.
Bracketology top seeds
Check out Palm’s latest bracket, full field of 68 and all the teams on the bubble on the Bracketology hub.
Officiating mistakes not factored in
Virginia moved up to the No. 2-line this morning, in part because the Cavaliers won while many teams around them lost. As you probably know, that win was controversial due to an officiating mistake that robbed Duke of a chance to win at the end of regulation. Instead, Virginia won in the overtime session.
The NCAA Tournament selection committee will sometimes give some minor consideration for roster issues such as injuries, etc, but even then, they do not pretend the shorthanded team would have won otherwise or pretend the game doesn’t count. However, they do not give any consideration for officiating mistakes. The result is the result. Always.
Pac-12 in a tight pack
The top of the Pac-12 has been hard to separate for me. Arizona lost at Stanford on Saturday for its fourth loss of the season, all of which have come to teams that are not in the bracket. Only Oregon even qualifies as a bubble team. Yes, the Wildcats have five wins over teams in the top six seed lines of the bracket, including Tennessee and UCLA.
Meanwhile, the Bruins have four good losses, but no wins better than the evisceration of Maryland in College Park. UCLA will eventually get another chance at a win better than that when it hosts Arizona on Mar. 4.
Conference records not considered
Here is your annual reminder that when it comes to selection and seeding the NCAA Tournament, conference performance does not matter. Conference records and standings are not criteria in the selection process. They are not on the team sheets. Other than earning the automatic bid, conference performance means nothing. A team is judged by how it did over its entire season.
Conference performance especially doesn’t matter when compared to similar performances in previous years in the same conference.
Some ACC fans believe that a good conference record guarantees a high seed in the NCAA Tournament. After all, until last season, those two things had typically gone hand in hand.
However, last season was a historically bad year for the ACC. North Carolina and Notre Dame finished tied for second at 11-5, one game behind Duke. The Tar Heels were a No. 8 seed in the NCAA Tournament and the Irish were the last team in the field. One game back of them was Miami, which earned a No. 10 seed in the tournament. Those teams had to do that well in the league just to get in the field.
UNC and Miami did especially well once they got to the tournament, but that does not mean the committee got those teams’ seeds wrong. They just got hot at a good time. In North Carolina’s case, the Tar Heels got hot just to get into the tournament and stayed hot when they got there. Instead of questioning the committee, maybe we should wonder what took those teams so long to play to their potential.
Kentucky drops out of bracket
Speaking of not playing to its potential, Kentucky is the first team out of the bracket this morning. North Carolina is in despite an 0-8 record against Quad 1 opponents. That happened because Ohio State finally took one loss to many to remain in Quad 1.
Also, Wisconsin is in despite being just four games above .500 and having a NET ranking of 80. The Badgers do much better in the rankings that do not rely so heavily on scoring margin.
And there are people out there who want to expand the tournament. The best case against that is to look at this bracket. Or any bracket. I’m in favor of going back to 64, but I feel pretty certain that will not happen.
