It's a 3 or a 4. Here's how it breaks down.
Unless craziness happens, Baylor and Marquette have 3-seeds locked down. Here are the remaining teams competing for the last two slots. Stats according to CBS. In no particular order:
|
Team |
RPI |
SOS |
|
Louisville |
18 |
8 |
|
Michigan |
10 |
13 |
|
Georgetown |
13 |
11 |
|
Indiana |
14 |
27 |
|
Wisconsin |
20 |
22 |
|
Florida State |
22 |
9 |
Remember UConn last year shot up all the way to a 3-seed with their Big East tournament run. Louisville, despite finishing the regular season slow, has the opportunity to do similar here. FSU, if they were to beat Duke and UNC on back to back nights, would have a case for themselves as well. Georgetown's numbers are very similar to Michigan's and both had rather ignominous conference tournament exits. At this point, it seems unlikely that either Indiana or Wisconsin would pass Michigan on the NCAA S-Curve, but crazier things have happened.
Tomorrow you are rooting for North Carolina to crush Florida State and eliminate one of the contenders. It'd be nice if Cincinnati won tonight, but it does not appear that is going to happen, so we're stuck with Louisville for the time being. In the most likely scenario it comes down to Georgetown vs Michigan for the last 3-seed, and we're splitting hairs at that point so it's guess work as to what the selection committee will decide.
Fortunately, there have been a lot of upsets in the mid-major conference tournaments and the overall competitiveness of the 13 and lower seeds has seen a significant drop in the last week.
Here are the teams that are likely to be 13 and 14 seeds (Michigan's likeliest opening round opponents, in no particular order):
|
Team |
# |
RPI |
SOS |
|
Long Beach St |
13 |
38 |
122 |
|
New Mexico St |
13 |
64 |
116 |
|
South Dakota St |
13 |
45 |
184 |
|
Colorado |
13 |
71 |
81 |
|
Belmont |
14 |
61 |
191 |
|
Montana |
14 |
72 |
200 |
|
Ohio |
14 |
59 |
178 |
|
Davidson |
14 |
64 |
168 |
Long Beach St would be the worst draw here, and I'm hoping they move up in the S-Curve to a 12 seed or better. They beat Xavier and Pittsburgh and they lost by single digits in road games vs UNC, Kansas and Louisville (i.e. they can play with anyone).
South Dakota St's best wins come over Oral Roberts and Washington. Common opponents they split their season series with Oakland and lost to Minnesota by 16.
Colorado has a bunch of Pac-12 wins and not much else to speak of. They lost OOC to Wichita St, Colorado St, and Maryland. They are not a good team on paper but someone had to win the P12 Tournament!
New Mexico St managed to beat New Mexico on the road and that is it on their list of impressive games.
Belmont is another scary draw. Their wins this year aren't flashy but they took Duke to the wire, losing by 1 point at Cameron. They also lost on the road to Memphis.
Montana has an impressive win streak going but they have played the weakest schedule of this pack of teams. Their best win came over Long Beach St at home.
Ohio who nipped Akron for the MAC title, wouldn't it be fun to draw this team in the first round. What would we chant? Ohio (not THAT ohio) has no real impressive wins to speak of and didn't play a grueling schedule. Their best "win" was a 5 point loss at Louisville back at the start of the season.
Davidson's results read something like, boring boring boring, WTF-beat-Kansas, boring boring boring. They beat Kansas on the road by 6 back in December. Their other 4 games vs respectable tournament quality opponents were all losses.
To recap:
Cackle With Knowing Glee: New Mexico St, South Dakota St, Colorado, Montana, or Ohio
Worry If: Belmont, Davidson, or Long Beach St (or whomever Long Beach Supplants from the 12-line).
Good night and see you after the selection show tomorrow.
TLDR: The three seed is currently a coin flip. We have a really good chance to have a team we should throttle in the opening round.
