WVU turned an upset against UK, helped by Kentucky missing its first 20 straight three point attempts. And that was with WVU choosing to play a 1-3-1 and leaving UK plenty of open looks, challenging them to hit a few shots. UK wasn't up to the challenge.
Should Duke manage to get by Baylor (a pick 'em game at best, with their two big guys and massive backcourt speed), WVU projects much more favorable for Duke than UK would have (line will probably be Duke -1, I would guess; UK would've been UK -4). I put Duke/WVA as a 50/50 game, Duke/UK would've been 35/65.
The door is open for Duke, but as we've already seen with three 1-seeds failing to get out of their regions, there is a lot of parity in the NCAA this year. Two 5 seeds (or a 6, if it's TN) will make the FF. That pretty much speaks for itself.
As far as the Big East goes, Huggins saved a little face for the conference tonight, and invalidated my B.E.- baiting "zero teams in the FF" talk. Unfortunately, it doesn't change the fact that conference was revealed as no better than the other power conferences. In a year when the tournament committee blessed them with 3 teams as a #1 or #2 (e.g.-projected as Elite Eight teams), only one made it that far. They had 5 teams seeded 1-4 (sweet sixteen projections), and only 2 justified the seeding. And the nature of the early round losses--both the level of the opposition and the magnitude of defeats-were ridonk (here's looking at u G'Town). It was a total flameout for the B.E., and the seeding committee has a little egg on their face. WVU holds the only hope for getting people to forget all of the terrible losses by teams that had been clearly overseeded--and that is for the boys from Morgantown to win it all. Anything else won't do.
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I disagree with the statement that the tourney committee has egg on their face.
First, there were a ton of ridiculous upsets this year. Kansas losing to Northern Iowa in the 2nd round? Cornell going to Sweet 16--the first Ivy team to do it since Penn made the final four in '79? Washington beating Marquette and UNM? The Elite Eight in the midwest comprising the 5 and 6 seeds?
No one could realistically expect that G-town would lose that early. They were looking very strong all season, especially down the stretch.
I think the only team that was legitimately overrated was 'Nova, but even then they deserved at least a 3 or 4 seed.
At the end of the day, if you got rid of the Big East teams or lowered their rankings, then who would take their spots? IMO, there aren't any obvious choices who were clearly better than their big east counterparts and got blatantly screwed by the selection committee.
The ACC got 6 teams in, yet only one (Duke) made it to the Sweet 16. In general it was a fairly surprising tournament.
'Nova was not a 2-seed. G'Town had some strong wins (heck I saw them dismantle Duke in D.C. this year--second only to the thrashing Clemson gave us in Littlejohn last year as the worst Duke losses I've seen in a decade), had the worst W-L record of any team seeded higher than 6.
Your point about Cornell is spot on. Here is a team that was top 25 at times in the year, and challenged the top overall seed in the whole tourney down to the wire in their own gym. This team was clearly 9 or a 10 seed. Instead, you have Wake (overseeded at a 9), Louisville (overseeded at a 9), and Florida (overseed at 10--shouldn't have even been in the tournament). So who does that hurt?
Well, it hurt Temple, which was underseed at 5, but ran into a matchup they couldn't handle b/c they had to play a 12 seed they never should have faced.
Temple should have been a 4 playing Wofford, Cornell a 9, and Cornell might have bit UK in the second round. Instead, with a full week of prep for handling Cornell's set offense, and the beating they layed on Wisconsin, Calipari had little trouble prepping for the game and convincing his guys that they needed to play with urgency. Like I say, I would have liked to see that game in round 2.
As far as the ACC goes, it should be little surprise that we didn't move more teams through to the S16. For one, the conference was legitimately down this year. Two, thanks to the committee overweighting B.E. teams wins against other B.E. teams, the seedings gave ACC teams a much more difficult path to the S16:
Here were the teams that got wins against ACC in rds 1 & 2: Michigan State, Ohio St, Kentucky, Missouri, Gonzaga. Average seeding: 5.2
Here were the teams with wins against Big East opponents in reds 1&2: Ohio, Xavier, Washington, Cal, Old Dominion, Saint Mary's. Average seeding: 10.
BTW, the 6-seed teams with records worse than GTown were both B.E. squads. To find a non-B.E. team with a worse record than GTown, you have to get all the way down to a 7 seed. Even given the quality of some of GTown's wins, that's a gap that's hard to swallow. And the proof was in the pudding in round 1. Who would have been the 3 in their stead? How about Purdue? Clearly that was a team that had been considered a lock for a two-seed before the Hummel injury, and more likely a one if the were the B10 tourney champion. Dropping them to a 4 seemed ridonk. Heck, this is the same committee that kept Cincinnati as a 1 after they lost K-Mart.
FWIW, I really like our half of the bracket to win the N.C. I could really see it being WVU, Duke, or Baylor, with the WVU v Duke/Baylor game really being a 50/50 affair, and the Duke/Baylor game being 50/50 as well.
I think Butler and TN/Mich St. are a little outgunned in this one, even though TN has some impressive wins (UK and KU), MSU is always tourney tough, and Butler plays mistake free ball. All that said, and with due respect to Mrs. SHK and her alma mater, I think WVA and the winner of the South regional will be a prohibitive, 2-1 favorite against whoever comes out of the West/Midwest matchup.
As an afterthought, WVU just added fuel to the flameout fire. Not only did they lose in the semifinal game, but they got smoked. Run out of the gym.
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