SI on draws

Mar 18, 2024, 11:30 AM

Clemson-related:

West Region

Toughest draw: No. 6 Clemson Tigers
Clemson could have been an intriguing team to make a deep run, with wins over the Alabama Crimson Tide and North Carolina in the regular season as proof the Tigers can win big games. But drawing a New Mexico Lobos team coming in surging off a Mountain West tournament championship in the first round is brutal, and there’s a real chance the Lobos will actually be favored by sportsbooks in the game. Even with a win there, Clemson would have to take down the Baylor Bears just to get out of the first weekend.

More Generally...

Men’s bubble teams got unlucky

Plenty of men’s teams are steaming this morning after being left out of the bracket. That includes Oklahoma, St. John’s, Seton Hall, Providence and Indiana State. Part of the reason those teams got excluded was because there were several so-called “bid thieves” this year. Duquesne, NC State and Oregon all unexpectedly won their conference tournaments to earn spots in the field, effectively reducing the number of at-large bids by three.

But it wasn’t just that there were fewer available spots for bubble teams. The committee also made some puzzling decisions in filling those spots. The inclusion of Virginia is the biggest head scratcher. The Cavaliers are 54th in the NCAA’s NET rankings and 69th in KenPom. They have a 2–7 record against Quad 1 opponents. St. John’s, by comparison, is ranked 32nd in NET and 25th in KenPom. Indiana State, ranked 28th in NET, became the highest-ranked team in that metric to ever be left out of the tournament.

Questionable men’s seeds

The controversy doesn’t end there. The committee is also drawing plenty of criticism for the way it seeded the men’s bracket. Was Duquesne, which went 10–8 in a not-so-good A-10 really deserving of an 11-seed? Why was Iowa State, considered by many to be a contender for a No. 1 seed, placed as a No. 2 seed in the same region as No. 1 overall seed UConn? Did Michigan State, with a 19–14 overall record, deserve to be solidly in the field as a No. 9 seed?

The most intriguing trend with the seeding, though, was how the committee treated the Mountain West Conference. The league got six teams into the tournament, tied for the third most of any conference, but only San Diego State (No. 5 seed) was seeded higher than eighth. Two MWC teams—Colorado State and Boise State—were among the last four teams into the field. Nevada, ranked 34th in NET and 36th in KenPom with a 6–6 record in Quad 1 games, got a No. 10 seed. How can the committee decide that the MWC is good enough to get more teams into the field of 68 than the ACC (five), Pac-12 (four) and Big East (three), and not reward its teams with seedings more reflective of the league’s strength?

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SI on draws

ACC has gotten screwed most every year since expansion.***

Re: SI on draws

Imagine Clemson being good enough to be a bid stealer

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