Get excited.
Today is Selection Sunday.
What is Selection Sunday?
Well, it should be a holiday. It should be marked in calendars.
It is mine.
Selection Sunday is the day the brackets are produced. It is the day when certain teams are selected to play in the NCAA tournament, also known as March Madness. And others are not.
It is a particulary fun day for teams on the Bubble and small schools.
The Bubble are teams that may or may not make the tourament. Usualy there are a good ten teams on the bubble with 4-5 making the tourney and 4-5 missing the tourney.
It can all be seen on CBS.
It is also the day seedings are finally revealed and match-ups are made.
We know certain teams will be in, what we don’t know is what they will be seeded. And though we have a good idea about some seedings, we still have no idea who will be placed in which region and what the match-ups will be….
It is a day that creates heart-aches and a day which creates head-aches… as we all try to pick our brackets.
I always have a list of teams I think should make it to the Final Four and Elite 8 and Sweet 16, well before the brackets are produced… but it is rare the seedings work out for me… L
It will be interesting to see what will happen today.
ISU and Butler are in because they won their conference championships… but where will they be seeded?
How about a team like Belmont?
Will anyone else from the Horizon get in?
Personally, I think
· Valpo
· Milwaukee
· Virg Cm
· Missouri St
· St Mary’s
Should all get in
And teams like
· Va Tech
· Clemson
· Georgia
· Bama
· Colorado
Should be left out
One reason people love the College Basketball Tourney is everyone gets a chance (unlike College Football).
But there is still a bias towards the top conferences and big schools.
Sometimes deservedly so.
But if teams play a good enough schedule, they will get seeded high (like BYU & SD st this season) but if not, they’ll still barely make it or be on the Bubble (like Utah St or Missouri St).
We’ll see what happens today.
Big East should dominate, B1G (BigTen) should get a number of teams too. I don’t think the ACC or SEC should get many, but they probably will. The Colonial (Old Dominion, George Mason, Virg Commonwealth) and Horizon (Butler, Milwaukee, Valpo, Clev St) should get more, but not get many. Atlantic10 at points moved into the upper echelon, but likely will be stuck with 3 seeds, but probably doesn’t deserve more either.
I’m hoping for brackets that can produce a Final Four of
1. Purdue
2. Ohio St
3. Pit
4. BYU or Louisville
And an Elite 8 of
5. BYU/L’ville
6. MSU
7. UConn
8. SD St
And a sweet 16 that could include
a bunch of small schools like Butler, OD, GM, Zaga, Richmond, ISU, Belmont…
March Maddness has already been MADD
I turned on the last 3 minutes to see St Johns and Rutgers and saw a crazy finish with the worst officiating ever. I saw the last few seconds of UConn vs Pit, which ended with a shot at the buzzer by Kemba Walker. Then last night saw the last 4 minutes of Washington and Arizona, which ended in a barrage of 3-pointers by Washington to get them to over-time, then a 3pointer by Arizona to tie it with just a few seconds in OT… before Isaiah Thomas nailed a jumper as time expired to win… Yes, it was a crazy week! And we haven’t even started!
I can’t wait!
