The NCAA Tournament selection show hits like a freight train. Months of analysis and speculation are finalized in a 60-minute frenzy. It’s so overwhelming that I waited an extra day before trying to process the layout of this year’s bracket.
Maybe the selection committee should have done the same thing.
I don’t envy anyone in charge of whittling down the field and setting up the pairings for the NCAA Tournament. But there’s a severe lack of balance in the regions, which seems to be rewarding the wrong team. Duke clearly is the weakest No. 1, having lost more games than any other top seed — including one on the road to N.C. State. I thought Duke was the fifth best team in the tournament and should have been given the top No. 2 seed, with the final No. 1 going to Big East Tournament champion West Virginia.
Instead, the Blue Devils were awarded the top seed in the South Region. Why? Smells like TV ratings to me. The Blue Devils, after all, are a ratings juggernaut. Remember that classic Pete Gillen line: “Certainly Duke is Duke. They’re on TV more than ‘Leave it to Beaver’ reruns.”
Still, Duke’s RPI (3) and strength of schedule (8) were good enough to be in the conversation for a No. 1 spot, so I see the argument there. But to place the Devils in a bracket with banged-up Purdue, reeling Villanova and overseeded Notre Dame is practically rolling out the red carpet to the Final Four. Villanova can beat Duke; so can third-seeded Baylor. But this is the easiest road to Indianapolis.
Meanwhile, West Virginia — with a better resume and, frankly, a better team — instead gets sent to the East. The Mountaineers are staring at an Elite Eight throwdown with Kentucky — a matchup that would make for a great title game, but now is relegated to a regional final.
Duke apologists are noting that several teams — Louisville, Baylor, Texas A&M and Villanova — can beat the Devils. They argue that the South isn’t weaker because Duke isn’t very good and thus can be defeated. Well if Duke isn’t very good then why does it get a No. 1 seed in the first place?
Indeed, Duke’s good fortune means the bracket is unbalanced. Kentucky and West Virginia will meet too soon. And the Midwest is loaded. The list of players in that region reads like an All-American roll call sheet: Kansas studs Sherron Collins and Cole Aldrich, Maryland powder keg Greivis Vasquez, Georgetown tour de force Greg Monroe, Ohio State Superman Evan Turner, Oklahoma State scoring machine James Anderson. Oh, and there’s also Michigan State, which has made five trips to the Final Four in the last 11 years.
So we’re left with a watered-down South and a top-heavy Midwest, which somehow rewards Duke and penalizes Kansas. Then we have this from NCAA Tournament selection committee chair Dan Guerrero hours after the bracket was released:
“We look at the entire body of work from November all the way through the conference tournament, and we put a lot of value in the way that Duke finished.”
How about the way that Kansas started and finished? The Jayhawks won the Big 12 regular season and the conference tournament. They were the top team in both major polls for 14 of 18 weeks this season. They earned that No. 1 overall seed.
Just not the road that comes with it.
James Irwin is The Washington Examiner sports editor. Reach him at [email protected].
Follow him on Twitter @irwinjj.
