They also didn't win their conference regular season or Tournament. It is unprecedented.Originally posted by The_Answer1313:
Duke is also 11-3 against the RPI top 50.Originally posted by 2Dope15:
Duke has 4 losses, and there are 5 teams ahead of them with only 2 or 3. Do they deserve a 1 seed.
Duke has wins AT Wisconsin, AT Virginia, AT North Carolina and AT Louisville.
There's no reason why Duke should not be a 1 seed.
I think winning the conference is overrated. The committee looks at the entire body of work and Duke's body of work is simply better than Wisconsin and Arizona.Originally posted by mkasten25:
They also didn't win their conference regular season or Tournament. It is unprecedented.Originally posted by The_Answer1313:
Duke is also 11-3 against the RPI top 50.Originally posted by 2Dope15:
Duke has 4 losses, and there are 5 teams ahead of them with only 2 or 3. Do they deserve a 1 seed.
Duke has wins AT Wisconsin, AT Virginia, AT North Carolina and AT Louisville.
There's no reason why Duke should not be a 1 seed.
In fact Notre Dame may have as strong a case (I wouldn't give ANY team from the ACC a 1), 29-5 vs 29-4...ND won 2x head to head (yes the loss was a 30 pt), wins @ Louisville, beat UNC 2x, including in Chapel Hill.
The ACC is a mess for a 1 seed because there's no clear best team. I'd give them all 2 seeds!
The 1s for me would be UK, Wisconsin, Villanova and Arizona.
Yup.Originally posted by The_Answer1313:
I think winning the conference is overrated. The committee looks at the entire body of work and Duke's body of work is simply better than Wisconsin and Arizona.Originally posted by mkasten25:
They also didn't win their conference regular season or Tournament. It is unprecedented.Originally posted by The_Answer1313:
Duke is also 11-3 against the RPI top 50.Originally posted by 2Dope15:
Duke has 4 losses, and there are 5 teams ahead of them with only 2 or 3. Do they deserve a 1 seed.
Duke has wins AT Wisconsin, AT Virginia, AT North Carolina and AT Louisville.
There's no reason why Duke should not be a 1 seed.
In fact Notre Dame may have as strong a case (I wouldn't give ANY team from the ACC a 1), 29-5 vs 29-4...ND won 2x head to head (yes the loss was a 30 pt), wins @ Louisville, beat UNC 2x, including in Chapel Hill.
The ACC is a mess for a 1 seed because there's no clear best team. I'd give them all 2 seeds!
The 1s for me would be UK, Wisconsin, Villanova and Arizona.
Duke "deserves" a 1 seed, but so do 5 other teams. That's an issue, and we are forced to split hairs to come to a resolution.Originally posted by SomeDudeCRO:
It's not unprecedented, and Duke's resume for a 1 seed is clearly deserving. Intimating that they will only get one due to bias does a disservice to the actual favoritism they do receive.
Good post, but Arizona 100% has the worst losses of the bunch. The excuse that they were all close does not excuse them of losing to 3 inept teams. If they win just one of those 3 games...they are the last 1 seed IMO. They also had their whole team against all three as far as I know. They do not have a "well Stanley Johnson didn't play against UNLV" like Wisconsin can for the Rutger's game fiasco. I'm really interested to see how Wisconsin adds Jackson back into the fray if he returns next week...as their chemistry is great without him and it could hurt them, but I doubt it with Ryan as the HC and the style of play they run. I digress, that is a topic for another thread.Originally posted by Aike:
Duke "deserves" a 1 seed, but so do 5 other teams. That's an issue, and we are forced to split hairs to come to a resolution.Originally posted by SomeDudeCRO:
It's not unprecedented, and Duke's resume for a 1 seed is clearly deserving. Intimating that they will only get one due to bias does a disservice to the actual favoritism they do receive.
Kentucky - Clearly a lock.
Villanova - Dominant season with regular season and conference championship in a strong conference. No great wins.
Wisconsin - Similar to Villanova, possibly with better wins depending on which metric we use. Only bad loss was with best player out. Also, what happens when/if Jackson comes back?
Virginia - Regular season champion of arguably the best league. 3 losses were all close games to Top 15-ish teams.
Anderson is back...does that make them better going forward or worse? In other words, can we discount the ND performance because Anderson was rusty, or is that a sign of things to come?
Duke - The best wins of the bunch, but also the worst losses. A double digit home loss to Miami was terrible. A double digit road loss to NC State was almost as bad.
What about Sulaimon? We are supposed to pay attention when rosters change. Duke has shown that they can win without Sulaimon, but they can also lose. And are they now even worse defensively?
Arizona - Regular season and tourney champ of a fairly soft league. Three losses were to non-tourney teams, but they were all on the road, and all close games. Most years, Arizona would be a lock for a 1 despite a couple of hiccups, but this isn't most years.
So there you have it. 5 deserving teams to squeeze into 3 available spots. At the end of the day, it isn't going to bother me if Duke gets a 1 seed. It is justifiable. But I don't think it's more justifiable than Virginia, for instance.
The committee is going to have to split hairs, and in some cases make some decisions about what roster changes mean to the product on the floor.
It's the most competitive one I can remember. And I agree with you about Arizona. I intentionally listed them last, because I think they're a 2. But in a vacuum, they look like a 1. They pass both the eye test and the metrics test.Originally posted by UKWildcats#8:
Good post, but Arizona 100% has the worst losses of the bunch. The excuse that they were all close does not excuse them of losing to 3 inept teams. If they win just one of those 3 games...they are the last 1 seed IMO. They also had their whole team against all three as far as I know. They do not have a "well Stanley Johnson didn't play against UNLV" like Wisconsin can for the Rutger's game fiasco. I'm really interested to see how Wisconsin adds Jackson back into the fray if he returns next week...as their chemistry is great without him and it could hurt them, but I doubt it with Ryan as the HC and the style of play they run. I digress, that is a topic for another thread.Originally posted by Aike:
Duke "deserves" a 1 seed, but so do 5 other teams. That's an issue, and we are forced to split hairs to come to a resolution.Originally posted by SomeDudeCRO:
It's not unprecedented, and Duke's resume for a 1 seed is clearly deserving. Intimating that they will only get one due to bias does a disservice to the actual favoritism they do receive.
Kentucky - Clearly a lock.
Villanova - Dominant season with regular season and conference championship in a strong conference. No great wins.
Wisconsin - Similar to Villanova, possibly with better wins depending on which metric we use. Only bad loss was with best player out. Also, what happens when/if Jackson comes back?
Virginia - Regular season champion of arguably the best league. 3 losses were all close games to Top 15-ish teams.
Anderson is back...does that make them better going forward or worse? In other words, can we discount the ND performance because Anderson was rusty, or is that a sign of things to come?
Duke - The best wins of the bunch, but also the worst losses. A double digit home loss to Miami was terrible. A double digit road loss to NC State was almost as bad.
What about Sulaimon? We are supposed to pay attention when rosters change. Duke has shown that they can win without Sulaimon, but they can also lose. And are they now even worse defensively?
Arizona - Regular season and tourney champ of a fairly soft league. Three losses were to non-tourney teams, but they were all on the road, and all close games. Most years, Arizona would be a lock for a 1 despite a couple of hiccups, but this isn't most years.
So there you have it. 5 deserving teams to squeeze into 3 available spots. At the end of the day, it isn't going to bother me if Duke gets a 1 seed. It is justifiable. But I don't think it's more justifiable than Virginia, for instance.
The committee is going to have to split hairs, and in some cases make some decisions about what roster changes mean to the product on the floor.
And you mention Miami and NC State as reasons Duke should maybe not get a 1 because they lost by double digits, but then want to knock Duke for losing Sulaimon, when they won 12 straight after kicking him off the team, including wins at UVA, ND, UNC, at UNC, and at UL. They also slaughtered NC ST without him...so seems addition by subtraction to me. I grant you they could have lost many games down the stretch, but won a lot of close ones. I don't think you can have it both ways...punish them for losing a key guy defensively, but also go back and say "They lost by double digits to these two medicore teams WITH HIM" when they did much better without him. Other than at Wisconsin (which is a huge win), they won their biggest games without him.
I agree that UVA should be the last 1...but I'm just playing devil's advocate with the above, which I'm sure the committee will as well to justify Duke as a 1 seed. Do you think this is the most competitive 1 seed race ever? I can't remember one more intense.