Gonzaga just bearly beat us out for the one seed the committee chairman just said
We probably didn't want to be a number one seed, if history and common sense are any indication. Number one seeds that were unranked in preseason have an abysmal history in the tournament. In fact, laughable. Dozens of failures without even reaching the Final Four. I've seen it broken down on betting sites countless times. Last season's example was Michigan State.
Here's an article with some related trends, on teams that spring out of nowhere and how they generally fare:
http://www.cbssports.com/collegebas...this-march-from-miami-heres-what-history-says
I realize this won't be received positively, since it doesn't jive with picking the Canes. But it fits a theme I've used for more than 15 years, to rely on preseason ratings throughout the year in college basketball, and football, to somewhat lesser degree. The idea is that regular season results basically mean nothing, that everything tends to drift back to the beginning. For every high profile example of a preseason flop, like USC in football last season, there are countless times in which the preseason numbers tell you one thing while the conventional wisdom of the moment says something else. Preseason invariably wins.
I was scoffed at when I began using this approach in 1996. Within a few weeks my friends were peering over my shoulder, asking what the preseason number was for this team or that team. In postseason college basketball it's extraordinarily common for teams that were rated higher in preseason to spring so-called upsets. They aren't upsets at all, merely the disguised superior team, winning as it should. I remember **** Vitale getting it right by naming Connecticut above Duke in preseason '98-'99, then idiotically switching his pick and joining the crowd in picking Duke prior to the game. Based on what, the trivia of current form? Connecticut rightfully prevailed. The money line was very sweet, attached to that +9.5 point spread.
I'm not saying it works every time...but far more often than it rightfully should. The numbers are suspect when the team rated higher in preseason is downgraded based on something that happened later. And I have no idea how we can be thrilled with this bracket, not when Indiana was number one in most preseason polls, Syracuse was also within the top ten, and Butler made many preseason lists in the 20-25 range.
lulz
