Is anybody else interested in taking a mulligan?
The 2010 NCAA Tournament hasn’t exactly gone according to plan — that is, unless your plan called for as many double-digit seeds (3) in the Sweet 16 as No. 1 teams. After two straight years of relative chalk, this Big Dance has returned the Madness to March.
Ali Farokhmanesh, a player so obscure that TV announcers had trouble pronouncing his name before Selection Sunday, has become the recognizable face of the tournament. His dagger-in-the-heart 3-pointer against Kansas felled the No. 1 overall seed — and in the process, busted brackets all over the country.
But should we have been so shocked? Maybe at Kansas losing so early, but not at Farokhmanesh’s icy resolve. This is, after all, the same guy who eliminated UNLV two days earlier with a 24-footer in the closing seconds. He scored 33 points in Northern Iowa’s two games in Oklahoma City, hitting 9-of-19 attempts from 3-point range. At this point, Farokhmanesh could nail a shot from Stillwater and I wouldn’t be surprised.
The Sweet 16 field looks like a jumbled mess, filled with upsets across the board. Then again, the litmus test for an upset these days is a lower seed winning — not exactly rocket science. If you take a closer look at the field and wipe away the seedings, you’ll find a common denominator.
Ten of the remaining 16 teams finished either first, or tied for first, in their conference. Another three (West Virginia, Saint Mary’s and Washington) won their conference tournament. The three teams that accomplished neither are Tennessee, Baylor and Kansas State — all of which finished in the top three in conference play. Five teams still playing (Duke, Ohio State, Kentucky, Butler and Northern Iowa) captured at least a share of their league’s regular season title and won the conference tournament.
The teams still alive aren’t party crashers at all. They’ve been elite programs all season. It gives further reason to believe that the seedings this year gave way too much weight to strength of league — and not enough to strength of team.
The Big East, heralded all season as the best conference in the country, sent eight teams to the tournament. Only two are left — regular-season champ Syracuse and tournament champ West Virginia. The other six? All knocked out by teams from “inferior” conferences who either won their league tournament or finished in first place in the regular season.
Surprised? You shouldn’t be. After all, this is March. What was that classic William Shakespeare line? “Though this be madness, yet there is method in it.” Shakespeare clearly wasn’t talking about the NCAA Tournament, but were he here today, he’d have to marvel at how it’s playing out.
Besides, he probably had Northern Iowa anyway.
James Irwin is The Washington Examiner sports editor. Reach him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @ irwinjj.
