More Seeding issues...

All of the sudden, Saturday's game becomes REALLY important:



http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/writers/andy_glockner/02/23/bracket.questions/index.html

4) Will the committee leave BYU in the West with the regional round in Salt Lake City?



This is a big question which is impacted by things like Question No. 1 and complicated by BYU's religious restrictions, which mandate the Cougars be placed into both a Thursday/Saturday subregional and regional. This season, that means BYU has to be in either the East or West region, and the West region would be an enormous home-region advantage.



BYU's situation will be handled similarly to Gonzaga's, with one additional caveat: right now, the Cougars are behind league rival New Mexico on the S-curve. In theory, that would give the Lobos first crack at the West regional and would force the Cougars into the East (because you can't have two of the top three teams from a conference in the same region).



In actuality, the cluster of Big East teams at the top of this week's bracket inadvertently hosed New Mexico, which was a 3 seed. Because Syracuse was the West No. 1, and the Big East also had two 2s (which couldn't be in Syracuse's region) and two 3s (which couldn't be paired in a region with a 2 seed from the conference), bracketing procedure forced the No. 3 seed in the West to be a Big East team. That pushed New Mexico out of the West region and opened the door for BYU to stay.



Bottom line: This situation is a lot more complicated than Gonzaga's, and we'll have to wait until right before Selection Sunday to have a real idea of how likely it will be that BYU gets to stay in the West.



5) In that situation, would the committee make New Mexico a 4 seed and keep them in the West?



It's very unlikely. The committee strongly wants to maintain the integrity of the seeding curve established for the top four seeds. The committee actually has "first quadrant" and "fourth quadrant" subcommittees that spend extra time refining the top four and bottom four seed lines of the bracket. Because most of the top seeds are fairly clear several days in advance and the smaller conference tournament winners also are established early, this work can be done well before the bubble mess in the middle needs to be sorted out.



As such, it would be a strong preference in this case to keep New Mexico as a 3 seed and ship them to another region.

Interesting. The dude only made one passing comment to the No-Sunday choice, and it was actually much less derogatory than we usually see out of the sports talking heads, so that's at least a positive (Maybe I'm just looking for reasons to hate on ESPN, but I really have noticed that SI's coverage of anything BYU or the MWC is much more balanced, fair and RESPECTFUL, than ESPN usually is, fwiw).

The Gonzaga situation to which he refers is the 1st weekend set of games that's in Spokane, but not hosted by the Zags. I thought that there was an actual miles-from-home-arena restriction in NCAA placement as well, but apparently not.



I didn't know what actual rules the Committee used for conference opponents' placements, so thanks to this guy for clarifying. I knew that they'd have to discontinue the "no-potential-conference-matchups-in-the-1st-weekend" rule they had years back, when conferences started being given dangerously close to 9 bids in the tournament (notice, I didn't say EARNING :sulk: ), as there are only 8 1st weekend sites. No way to avoid it. So this rule seems to make more sense. All the committee as to do is separate the top 3 teams from each region.



It sure sounds like to cement us in front of New Mexico on the Committee S-curve, we need a win against them at home, and maybe even in the conference tourney. Ugh. Tough road. I'd say that with the Committee's propensity to screw us over, we basically have to give them NO reason to put us behind New Mexico. That probably means winning the tourney even if we don't even play NM, otherwise even in the BEST case scenario, we're playing a powerhouse East Coast 1-seed on a 'Cuse court thousands of miles closer to our opponent than Provo. Much less appetizing than playing the odd-man out 1-seed that has to venture out to SLC to play a home-team BYU.



It would REALLY suck for us if instead of SLC we ended up in Syracuse (except of course for the Fredettes, still, having the entire clan in Philly didn't do much for us. We sat right next to them; I had a nice chat with Jimmer's dad).



So, uh, go Cougars!!!

Damn the MWC and their obsession with the bball tourney in vegas. I think that's where this war for the 4 is going to be won or lost. Not too worried about this weeks games.

Are dates already set for the locations? Could a Thursday/Saturday location become a Friday/Sunday?

Qman wrote:
Are dates already set for the locations? Could a Thursday/Saturday location become a Friday/Sunday?

If you're saying that TIC because of my yearly rant about scheduling, I actually did laugh out loud. If not, uhh, these venues schedule over a year in advance. No way they could just switch to different days. They've been selling tickets for months now. (I REALLY REALLY REALLY hope it was the first!)

Nice article. Nice to learn a bit more about what actually goes into seeding selection.



I have the feeling that anything less than perfection from here on out will be used as an excuse to place BYU in the East bracket with a less than deserving seed. If we don't win, the normal +2 rule to seeding will once again apply and we'll be looking at a 5 seed. If we win out, there would be no discrepancy as to whether BYU is the best team in the MWC. It basically forces the committee to recognize us.

What i got from reading was that the winner of the BYU-UNM game has a very good chance of being the #3 seed in the West and the SLC region.

I also found it interesting that there was no problem with Gonzaga playing home games in the tourney, but supposedly there might be issues with BYU having games in SLC on a new court? I'm not following the logic.

kitic77 wrote:
I also found it interesting that there was no problem with Gonzaga playing home games in the tourney, but supposedly there might be issues with BYU having games in SLC on a new court? I'm not following the logic.

I was wondering the same, and reminded of the year we played Xavier 50 miles (as I remember) from their house in the first round. :sulk:

kitic77 wrote:
I also found it interesting that there was no problem with Gonzaga playing home games in the tourney, but supposedly there might be issues with BYU having games in SLC on a new court? I'm not following the logic.

Gonzaga (Portland 4 Seed): Home court advantage over a 13 seed and a 5 seed (first round of two games).

BYU (West 3 Seed): Home court advantage over a 2 seed and a 1 seed (2nd round of two games).



See?

Mars wrote:

I also found it interesting that there was no problem with Gonzaga playing home games in the tourney, but supposedly there might be issues with BYU having games in SLC on a new court? I'm not following the logic.

Gonzaga (Portland 4 Seed): Home court advantage over a 13 seed and a 5 seed (first round of two games).

BYU (West 3 Seed): Home court advantage over a 2 seed and a 1 seed (2nd round of two games).



See?

Easily remedied. When BYU wins out, give them the 2-seed they DESERVE, rather than the 3- or 4- seed with which they screw BYU over, then tell the 1-seed that has to play out in SLC: "Tough patooties, we're giving you a 1-seed despite having more losses than the 2-seed. We can't put four east coast 1-seeds in three east coast venues. If you're really a 1-seed, just shut up and beat the 2-seed."



Oh, wait, that's only the kind of thing they tell BYU after making them travel thousands of miles from home.

:sulk:

So are we saying that the best teams in the entire west won't get to play in the west?



How irresponsible would that be if UNM or BYU won out and didn't get to stay just to protect the 1,2 seeds.



I know there's certainly a bias against BYU - in 1988 we were a 4 seed and got sent to the southeast region (and lost to Louisville in the 2nd round)



Kansas was a 6 seed, got a midwest spot and went on to win the national championship in Kansas City. (I know I was there)



It's not like Salt Lake is a 1st round city; how about we reward the best teams in the entire west with a shot to defend their turf and let the games play out. It's not easy to even get to the sweet sixteen.



The tourney has changed and the 1st round "west" games wouldn't be played very west anyhow... winning 2 games in the dance is not easy and it'd be insulting (and not at all surprising) if the tournament committee kept BYU/UNM out of the west simply because of the second round venue.



If BYU wins out and doesn't get a spot in the west, I'd be ready to drive my car into the NCAA offices in KC.... I'll buy the gas (and extra insurance) after saturdays game