Monday, March 12, 2018 **HELP support World Vision (deadline Tue 3:40 pm PDT )**
VIRGINIA SECURES TOP SEED WHILE PAC 12 IS KICKED TO THE GROUND
For pool # 24, events occur in real time
BUTTE, MT/CERRITOS, CA (smt)- S-Virginia steam-rolled in the tough ACC winning the regular season and tournament to get the tournament selection committee’s top #1 overall seed with a 31-2 record. Two Big East teams (E-Villanova and W-Xavier) and Big 12 champ MW-Kansas got the other three #1s. This was the second straight year Kansas got a 1 seed despite 7 losses but at least this year they won their conference tournament. The Cavs led the ACC contingent who got a record-tying 9 teams while the SEC got a record 8 teams (was 6) but none higher than a 3 seed (S-Tennessee). The Big 12 got 7 of its 10 teams in (with early hopes for 9) and the Big Ten got four, who played their tournament a week early in order to have their games at Madison Square Garden. That leaves the Pac 12 as the last of the Big 6 conferences and they were treated that way by having their conference & tourney champ Arizona seeded 4th and in the South, two others only getting to the First Four (#11bE-UCLA and #11aMW-Arizona St), and their conference runner-up and tourney finalist USC getting left out entirely despite an RPI of 34 (record for lowest RPI not to make tourney since ’11). Notre Dame was actually the first out and they can blame #12S-Davidson’s upset Atlantic 10 final win over #7MW-Rhode Island for stealing a spot on Sunday. A record five teams had 8-10 conference records and made the tourney (Notre Dame was also 8-10 while USC was 12-6) albeit two face each other in the First Four (Arizona St and #11bMW-Syracuse) and #9E-Alabama was comfortably in despite losing a record-tying 15 games (Vandy in ’17). Five at-large berths were given outside the Big 6 with the American and Atlantic 10 each getting two and the Mountain West getting one.
The selection committee (BTW, why the $%#! was the selection show not on CBS???) seemed to emphasize wins equally throughout the season, which is great except that if you lose 11 of 15 games to end a season including the first game of your conference tournament, sorry, #10MW-Oklahoma, you were not deserving of a bid and should’ve played yourselves out of a spot. HOWEVER, for these last at-large bids I’m okay for TV reasons to choose a team with a star player like OK’s Trae Young but the committee should just admit that over whatever baloney they tried to convince TNT’s Charles Barkley with. Quadrant wins were also a factor putting less emphasis on RPI for the first time. But then again, if you can’t schedule teams in Quadrant 1, how could you ever pick up Quadrant 1 wins, so it seems to benefit the big conferences more. I really hope Syracuse’s inclusion wasn’t due to all their complaining about missing the tourney last year.
Locally, UCLA snuck into as one of the last four while USC missed the cut after Continue reading