Full disclosure: Kentucky is the best team in the world and I have as much supreme confidence in them to win it all as is humanly possible, as winning the tournament is hard no matter how good you are. Bring everybody on.
Now then, onto the major talking point this year from Lego man Joe Lunardi, who insists that the committee will give the 2 seeds equal geographic preference as the 1 seeds. The argument is that the 1 vs. 2 matchup in the elite 8 round happens so infrequently that it would be unfair to the 2 seed to not get geographic preference as well in case the 1 seed loses before that round.
This felt like complete crap as soon as I heard it, so I went to sports-reference.com/cbb to check it out. Since the field expanded to 64 teams in 1985, there have been 120 elite 8 games. In those 120 games...
The 1 seed has played the 2 seed 41 times.
The 1 seed has played somebody else 41 times.
The 2 seed has played somebody else 18 times.
So the 1 seed makes the elite 8 roughly 2/3 of the time and the 2 seed makes the elite 8 around half the time. About 1 in every 6 times the 2 seed gets there and somebody other than the 1 seed is waiting for them.
I think Kentucky would beat Wisconsin. But that game doesn't need to happen in a regional final because those are (JMO) the two best teams in the country. Surely they won't do this for real, right?
Now then, onto the major talking point this year from Lego man Joe Lunardi, who insists that the committee will give the 2 seeds equal geographic preference as the 1 seeds. The argument is that the 1 vs. 2 matchup in the elite 8 round happens so infrequently that it would be unfair to the 2 seed to not get geographic preference as well in case the 1 seed loses before that round.
This felt like complete crap as soon as I heard it, so I went to sports-reference.com/cbb to check it out. Since the field expanded to 64 teams in 1985, there have been 120 elite 8 games. In those 120 games...
The 1 seed has played the 2 seed 41 times.
The 1 seed has played somebody else 41 times.
The 2 seed has played somebody else 18 times.
So the 1 seed makes the elite 8 roughly 2/3 of the time and the 2 seed makes the elite 8 around half the time. About 1 in every 6 times the 2 seed gets there and somebody other than the 1 seed is waiting for them.
I think Kentucky would beat Wisconsin. But that game doesn't need to happen in a regional final because those are (JMO) the two best teams in the country. Surely they won't do this for real, right?