In the South - What the heck

Get the #1 overall 1 seed, playing Austin Peay.

And we face Tad Boyle's Colorado or UConn in Game 2.

UConn was one of a handful of teams I did not want in our region, second only to Michigan St!
Really hope Tad's Lads can beat them. The Huskies are streaking again, and I do not like it.

I think Nova as the 2 favors KU, but the Jayhawks have got to win three games to get there. And Nova probably has to get past Miami first.

And yuck - Zona!

And maybe WSU if they beat (and they will) Vanderbilt.

Notably no other Big 12 teams in this region.

Need to soak this in, and see what other regions look like.

I think we all agree that Michigan St was *the* team we did not want to see until the FF, preferably the NC.

We got our wish, KU cannot see MSU until the NC.

The only team in our region that really bothers me is UConn, as they are once again doing that crazy post season winning streak they do so well.

KU cannot meet another Big 12 team until the FF. If OU and KU make the FF, they would face each other in one NSF.

Michigan St, UK, UNC, Indiana, WVU, ISU are all on the opposite side of the bracket. If KU meets one of them, it will be for all the marbles. I'll take that scenario for any of them.

Go JAYHAWKS!

Interested to read it. Thank, Don.

CorpusJayhawk wrote: I categorically disagree that KU got screwed. In fact, I think we got the best road we could have expected. I give the selection committee a lot more credit. I think the talking heads sometimes like to talk.
... the better way to measure is to look at the actual matchups. Assuming the highest rated teams win resulting in each team's toughest possible matchups, KU comes out well. Of the 4 regions through the Final 4 game here are the average ratings for the 5 games.

East - 87.8
Midwest - 84.6
West - 84.1
South - 82.2

I think the committee did a good job in progressively making the 1st through 4th seeded No. 1's get tougher brackets.

So, if I follow correctly, based on actual matchups if teams play to seed, KU as the #1 1 seed got the easiest path to the NC game, #2 1 seed UNC actually got the toughest, and the #3 and #4 one seeds had the "middle of the road" paths.

Right?

I must say I like your data, as it supports the "eyeball" test I did in assessing that KU was treated okay by the committee. Always nice to have our SWAGs supported by data!

I love Corpus's stuff, but as for your comment:

So, if I follow correctly, based on actual matchups if teams play to seed, KU as the #1 1 seed got the easiest path to the NC game, #2 1 seed UNC actually got the toughest, and the #3 and #4 one seeds had the "middle of the road" paths.

Right?

I must say I like your data, as it supports the "eyeball" test I did in assessing that KU was treated okay by the committee.

Where I trip up on the "eye test" is when you compare KU's path with that of Michigan State--at least up to the FF. At that point, I think it flips in our favor a bit (since UNC is on MSU's side of the bracket, and arguably our toughest foe would be the very familiar Sooners). Up to the FF, though, I really think Michigan State got a breezy ride--and that includes my "eyeball" of watching UVA a ton out here in DC and not thinking they're quite as solid as the numbers sometimes indicate. (They need to get to a FF before I'll really start believing in them, and they've not done that yet with good teams in recent years)

The tourney hardly ever plays out the way we think, of course, so all this is just fun speculation. But I think we've got a very challenging region. The nice thing is I think we're the best team in the land, so we should be prepared for that gauntlet...coupled with the fact that I think we're best positioned to get to the NC game (if we get to the FF) of all the "chalk" teams, given our position in playing the West.

Fun stuff, regardless.

Rock Chalk...