I have a bracket and now I've been talking for three days. Let's get started right away.
Below are 10 immediate thoughts on 68 areas this year.
1. The SEC was even more highly valued than we thought it would be.
There was little doubt that Sunday was the day when the SEC would set new records for most teams from one meeting in the same NCAA tournament. It happened in a major way, with 14 of the 16 teams in the league being called their names.
Texas was like a surprise inclusion, not even approaching the last team in the field. The longhorns were sown higher than the other three teams. So it was actually just one place after avoiding Dayton and the first four completely.
Three other teams thought to be above or at least close to the bubble made the field even more comfortable. Vanderbilt and Arkansas safely exempt Dayton as 10 seeds, while Oklahoma won a nine.
The league's top dominated the top three rows on the field, but that was expected.
2. Some of the biggest names of sports in sports are heading towards Providence
What about the quadrant: Rick Pitino and St. John's, Bill Self and Kansas, John Calipari and Arkansas. Chris Crutchfield and Omaha are there too. Trash can tradition It's pretty cool, so that's what it is.
The other two games played at Providence, a Midwest Regional Contest, could be two more interesting leaps in the first round. Matt Painter and governing national runner-up Purdue face high points, one of the nation's best offenses in one game, with Clemson taking on the regional final for the first time in program history last year – facing Will Wade (the power conference head coach will soon become Wade again) and his strong McNee team is the trending 12/5 McKing Pick.
We believe that Amica Mutal Pavilion is rich in appearance.
3. West Virginia has made the most brutal kind of history
All 111 people were tracked in parentheses bracketmatrix.com West Virginia is in 68 areas and has made climbers the first unanimous choice in the history of the site being excluded from Big Dance. Within brackets of just 50 people who had Texas in the tournament, only 27 North Carolina had made the cut.
Commission Chairman Baba Cunningham said the climber was dinged for not having Star Tucker Devries, who was declared for the season in early February due to a shoulder injury. That seems a bit strange and unfair considering that the Devries only played the first eight games of the WVU season. Iowa Without him.
4. There was an extreme contradiction in the ACC
In the first five seconds of the bracket, we learned that Auburn, not Duke, is the overall seed of the tournament. About 15 seconds later, we learned that Louisville, who finished second in the ACC regular season and tournament, was expected to be 5 or 6 seeded, and that he had been relegated to eight-seed status.
Soon, almost everyone following college basketball tweeted something along the line, “Well, this seems like the end of North Carolina.” Naturally, within a minute, it turns out that Tar Heel, who lost seven ACC games and 1-1-12 on the Quadrant-I opportunity, somehow made the field.
In addition to the contradiction, Clemson has roughly the same metric as Louisville, losing to the Cardinals in both meetings, but with 5th, three rows higher, sown.
Sometimes these things don't have a rhyme or reason.
5. Midwest region may be chaotic
It seems everyone is predicting that this will be “the most chalk tournament since 2015”, or something along those lines.
The top two seed lines appear to be particularly dominant this year, but here's a friendly reminder. All of the 2012 and later one Final 4 have at least one team seeded to No. 7 or later. A total of 13 teams have been sowing more than seven times over the final weekend of the season, including the 11th seed since 2011. NC status last year.
If there's something else this year, don't be surprised if it comes out of this area.
Top-seeded Houston has been solidly stiff all season, but by dealing with the injury to a key player for J'Wan Roberts (turning to the tournament again). Second-seeded Tennessee is well-known for not defeating the No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament and is widely considered to be the best program in college basketball without appearing in a single Final Four. The third seed Kentucky has created the recent habit of suffering shocking losses in the first round. Certainly, it was under John Calipari, but new head coach Mark Pope won an overall zero game in Big Dance and was beaten twice as a top six seed in the first round.
Despite being 9th overall at Ken Pom, he throws Gonzaga as an eighth seed, and is a very dangerous double-digit species pair of Mcney and High Point, so don't be surprised if things get weird here.
6. Seriously, North Carolina?
Let me try and become millions of people today and point out how meaningless this doesn't make.
North Carolina lost seven games in the horrifying ACC, combining 0-5 against other large teams in the conference to make it 1-12 in the Quadrant-I game. They are also the only team in the East of Mississippi that Stanford has beaten on their home floor this season, suiting the Quadrant-III loss.
There's simply no reason to participate in this tournament other than to encourage brand recognition and TRUTV, or perhaps their athletic director, to be the chairman of the selection committee.
7. They will probably still win multiple games in this tournament
Did you know that other teams have absolutely zero business creating NCAA tournaments? 2010-11 VCU Rams. They quickly silenced everyone by going to the Final Four from the first four.
There has been a trend since then among the final large teams on the field.
Since the start of the first four in 2011, the teams coming out of Dayton have won at least one game in the “main draw” of the tournament. It wasn't in 2019 that it didn't happen. It's quite noteworthy considering that we only talk about two 11 or 12 types each year where we have the opportunity to achieve this.
Overall, the first four produced a total of 22 victories in the tournament's “main draw.” This is UCLA's latest two teams, two final four teams, three seasons ago.
North Carolina hasn't achieved dramatically this season. That doesn't mean they lack talent. RJ Davis is a former ACC Player of the Year who previously showed off his ability to play a March hero, Ian Jackson is an NBA guy, and Elliot Caddo was incredible in his stretch with Duke in the semi-finals of the ACC tournament.
Not qualified does not mean incompetent.
8. The 12/5 upset trend could continue in a big way
In 33 of the last 39 years, at least one 12 seeds have made its first round of the tournament. Over the past 16 years, 12 seeds actually own a very respectable overall record of 27-37 against five seeds, including the 2-2 mark last season.
This year's 12 seed lines are stacked.
UC San Diego is the top 40 teams on almost every metric and plays against Michigan state teams. McNeese has been losing once since mid-December and may have the sport's most popular head coach. Mountain West Champ Colorado State won in 10 straights and has not won the game with less than 8 points in that stretch. Liberty defeated both McNee and Kansas He won 12/5 games in 2019 on the neutral court on 2019.
At least one of these teams won this week.
9. BYU-VCU feels like the best game in the first round
BYU He has scored over 90 points in half of his last eight games, and has the most fun pair of players in the tournament between Richie Sanders and Egoldenin. When Cougars are on, there may not be any more interesting teams in this country.
On the other side there is all sorts of talk that VCU's Ryan Odom could potentially leave the door to power conference work after Lands' run in the dance. That could be a little longer than the schools you're interested in want. The A-10 champion has been losing once since the beginning of February. Should It was a big choice, even if you weren't taking care of your business in a league tournament.
10. Gonzaga will be tough to expand that sweet 16
I had 8/9 team resumes this season, but there was no greater paradox than the Zags, who had top two seeded computer metrics. A common idea was that the committee might split the difference between 6 or 7 lines and Gonzaga in the slot.
That didn't happen, but now Zag is set to face Georgia in Thursday's 8/9 contest. Houston is the lucky one seed awaiting the winner on Saturday.
The seed hit Gonzaga's chances to set a new record for most consecutive 16 appearances. The Bulldogs took place on the second weekend for the ninth consecutive year, combining with Duke (1998-2006) and North Carolina (1985-1993) to make it the longest striped pattern ever.
