UConn misses the potential game-winning three at the buzzer, and the #11 seed, George Mason — out of the Colonial Athletic Conference — is going to the Final Four!!!
They tie LSU ‘86 as the lowest seed ever to make the Final Four… and they’re the first true mid-major to qualify since 1979, when Larry Bird led Indiana State out of the Missouri Valley Conference and Penn qualified out of the Ivy League. That was back when only 40 teams made the NCAAs.
Remember the pundits who were saying “this could be the year” that all four #1 seeds might make the Final Four? HA! Villanova had better beat Florida, or else none of the #1 seeds will make it! In a shameless I-told-you-so gesture, I refer you to my critique of Gregg Doyel’s prediction that upsets would be scarce in 2006:
I really find this amusing. Every year, basketball pundits are convinced that this will be the year when all the high seeds avoid those pesky early-round upsets. Every year, the TV guys confidently roll out their Final Four picks, laden almost exclusively with #1 and #2 seeds, and the occasional #3 thrown in as a “sleeper.â€? I’m not sure these guys have been watching the same NCAA Tournament that I have over the past decade… [I then proceeded to demonstrate the inherent unpredictability of the NCAA Tournament, and then concluded:] Is there any reason to believe this year will be different? On the contrary, the numbers suggest this tournament could be crazier than ever.
In fairness, Doyel’s column anticipates that teams like LSU and UCLA might make runs; his point was that first-round upsets wouldn’t happen this year. But that would rule out George Mason, now wouldn’t it? My point here isn’t really to criticize Doyel, though. My point is to criticize a broader phenomenon: the tendency of pundits to be unjustifiably overconfident in the top seeds every damn year. As the song says:
Mine eyes have the glory of a bracket freshly made
And prognosticators certain that the seeds will be obeyed
But like clockwork, underdogs emerge and favorites are waylaid
The Madness marches on!Glory, glory, Cinderella!
Glory, glory, Cinderella!
Glory, glory, Cinderella!
The Madness marches on!
And now I’ll make another bold prediction: the pundits will learn nothing from this experience. Next year, four #1 seeds will again be anointed, and the pundits will again conclude that they are nigh unbeatable, except perhaps by a scrappy underdog #2 seed, or maybe a “sleeper” #3 seed. Dickie V will put Duke, UConn, North Carolina and some other Top 3 seed in the Final Four. The other pundits will make very similar predictions. And they will all be bizarrely confident in these picks.
The NCAA Tournament rocks. :)
P.S. Not that I, or virtually anyone else, picked George Mason. That’s not the point. What I don’t understand is why so many pundits seem not to have learned the all-important lesson: expect the unexpected. Make your picks, guys, but don’t say things like, “I don’t know if anyone can beat Duke/UConn/Texas/UNC/etc.” Someone always beats at least a few of those “unbeatable” teams. Every year! It’s not surprising anymore. It’s just March Madness.
P.P.S. A fun flashback:
With the NCAA selection show exactly 100 hours away, the most intriguing question right now — supplanting the whole Missouri Valley vs. power conferences debate — is what the selection committee will decide to do with George Mason.
Heading into the Colonial Athletic Association tournament, the Patriots, regular-season co-champs in the CAA, were widely considered a “lockâ€? to receive an at-large bid, if they needed it, to the NCAAs. … Suddenly, everybody and his brother is suggesting that the combination of GMU’s semifinal loss and Skinn’s one-game suspension might cause the committee to look elsewhere to fill that at-large spot. …
Needless to say, Skinn’s action was very unsportsmanlike, but the whole team should not be punished so harshly for one player’s mistake (for which he has apologized). Suspending him is clearly the right decision, but effectively “suspending� the team from the tournament would not be. I don’t even think Mason’s seed should be reduced, considering it’s only a one-game suspension. Reducing a team’s seed because of a star player’s season-ending injury is one thing, but doing so because he’s going to miss one game? Would UConn’s seed be lowered if the committee knew that Rudy Gay was going to miss one game — but only one — due to injury? Would Gonzaga fall from a #2 to a #3 or #4 if Adam Morrison were suspended for one game under a new NCAA policy against ridiculous facial hair? I think not. So, how can they penalize George Mason on the same basis?
Granted, as a team that would likely be in the #10-12 seed range, George Mason is less likely than UConn or Gonzaga to reach the second round, especially without Skinn. For the Patriots, it is statistically more likely to be a one-game tournament. But it’s still a blatantly unfair double-standard to treat them differently just because they would have a lower seed. I believe that all NCAA teams should be judged on the basis that they are participating in a six-game tournament, and seeded accordingly. The committee should not assume, for seeding or selection purposes, that any team will be one-and-done, no matter what the percentages might say.
Looks like I was far more right than I realized! :)
March 26th, 2006 at 5:11:26 pm
God Bless George Mason! UConn was living on stolen time, glad to see a team EARN their way to the final four!
March 26th, 2006 at 5:11:38 pm
Will you get off that lame Bradley-MVC bandwagon now? I’ll save a spot for you over here on the GMU bandwagon. ;-)
March 26th, 2006 at 5:13:02 pm
yay
March 26th, 2006 at 5:13:05 pm
I blame Bush.
March 26th, 2006 at 5:13:58 pm
How pathetic–all four women’s games today are 1-4 or 2-3 games.
March 26th, 2006 at 5:15:44 pm
Re the women’s games:
Duke Sucks!
Go Green!
:)
March 26th, 2006 at 5:16:43 pm
I know you don’t care too much, but Villegas, a rookie from Colombia via U of Florida has a four foot putt to make the Masters.
No pressure. LOL
March 26th, 2006 at 5:16:59 pm
The NCAA has to LOVE how Mason was in the DC regional: Minneapolis is no where NEAR sold out.
DC was.
March 26th, 2006 at 5:17:13 pm
well, i guess this is bittersweet. sure, uconn lost, but at least i won’t have to listen to all these people complain about the refs, which would have happened if that 3 went in. I left some red meat for you people on the “highway robbery” comments below, but with the recent events, i figured it wouldn’t get much attention. Uconn never woke up in this tourney for more than about 5 minutes of a game… and it finally caught up to them. Let’s see if mason can shoot their brains out yet again in indy.
interesting note: i’m a fan of uconn basketball (except marcus williams because of his off-court actions) and have been since middle school, but i can’t really stand the school otherwise. now i’m going to dinner with a group that is for the most part uconn graduates… this aught to be interesting lol.
Congrats to the Colonials! I’ll be rooting for them.
March 26th, 2006 at 5:17:24 pm
He made it.
March 26th, 2006 at 5:20:26 pm
No complaints were forthcoming, Shaun. GM missed four free throws, beginning with the front end of a one & one to end regulation.
If they had blown it, the refs would have been held blameless, if not in high regard. I thought they were excellent.
March 26th, 2006 at 5:23:01 pm
note: when i said colonials, i was refering to the conference (not a mistake on the teams’s name) because this is a huge event for the entire conference. i’ll be rooting for the conference to take advantage of this and become competitive. congrats to the patriots as well.
March 26th, 2006 at 5:23:25 pm
In Yahoo’s NCAA tourney pick ‘em, not one person picked George Mason to win the DC region. Heh.
Also, I was thinking today, what is the real difference between teams like Gonzaga, Wichita State, George Mason, and teams like Marquette, Villanova, and St. Joseph’s? The latter three are all small schools, they just happen to play in conferences with some big schools, which in my mind makes it even tougher for them to recruit and compete. No?
March 26th, 2006 at 5:26:45 pm
Brendan, I recall Doyel’s argument applying to the first round. You can’t claim credit for GMU–nobody else saw that coming, either. And no one is going to start picking 10 and 11 seeds as a result of this year’s tournament–it’s far too risky and improbable.
March 26th, 2006 at 5:28:15 pm
I came in here like a good sport to eat crow after I said the game wasnt close in the first half.
I will say, The foul with 30 seconds left on Armstrong ranks up there as one of the worst ever. But, GMU still won.
March 26th, 2006 at 5:29:31 pm
and Loy, you on the GMU bandwagon now?
March 26th, 2006 at 5:30:37 pm
If Florida wins, lots of interesting things will happen:
1. No 1 seeds will advance.
2. The much exulted Big East will have NO teams in the Final Four.
3. The SEC will have two teams in the Final Four. The SEC, the conference NO ONE was talking about at all. They mentioned their teams, but never said, “Hey, the SEC might get somewhere in the tourney this year!”
Look at who is gone already: the ACC, the Big Ten, and the Big East is one loss away from being gone. The Pac-10, who everyone said was BAD, has a team in. Amazing.
March 26th, 2006 at 5:36:57 pm
It figures, the year I give up on Florida cuz they burned me every year before, and they are dominant and probably end up in the Final Four. Bastards.
March 26th, 2006 at 5:37:50 pm
4. Mike Tran clinches the pool. :)
Andrew, re-read my post… I made a few edits, which I think I address your points (before even having read them).
Nate, it depends on your definition of “bandwagon.” Am I rooting for them to win the championship? Yeah! I love underdogs! But it’s not like I’m going to claim them as my new favorite team, or say that I adopted them before anybody else (e.g. Gonzaga ‘99 and, to a lesser extent, Bradley ‘06) because… I didn’t. Yeah, I forcefully argued that they should be included in the tournament, and yeah, I briefly considered picking them to win their first-round game (my original written bracket looks something like this:
GMUMSUGMUMSU), but I ended up picking Michigan State, and I never seriously considered taking the Patriots beyond the second round. Hell, once I saw the Sweet 16 matchup, I thought Wichita State would beat ‘em. I’m just as surprised by their run as everyone else.March 26th, 2006 at 5:39:17 pm
LOL!! The CBS scoreboard was messed up for a sec there.
Florida sinks a 3, and they give NOVA three. They don’t realize their error for about 15-30 seconds. Then, they give Florida 3, but don’t subtract it from Nova. Then FINALLY, they take the points off of Nova.
Then, they re-aired the Bud Light daredevil commercial about going shopping DURING THE GAME! But they stuck a basketball game on the screen instead of a football game. Nice.
March 26th, 2006 at 5:41:07 pm
Make your picks, guys, but don’t say things like, “I don’t know if anyone can beat Duke/UConn/Texas/UNC/etc.�
Brendan, I’m having a hard time thinking of any pundits who felt any of those teams were bulletproof. A lot of people picked Texas, UConn, and even Duke and UNC, but nobody saw them as locks. In fact, unlike last year, in which almost everyone was picking UNC or Illinois, nobody knew who to pick this year. UConn was about as weak a consensus pick you could have, as many felt Villanova was the surer lock to reach the final, and many thought Memphis was better than UConn. So again, I sure didn’t hear a lot of “Nobody’s going to beat Team X.” It just didn’t play out that way.
March 26th, 2006 at 5:42:25 pm
Bush ia an evil, bad, bad man.
March 26th, 2006 at 5:44:45 pm
We must have been watching different shows, Andrew. I saw plenty of that sort of thing this year, like every year. Also, lots of statements like: “the national champion will definitely be one of the following six teams…” none of which were LSU, UCLA, George Mason or Florida (though Villanova can still salvage those statements… but they’ll need to rally).
March 26th, 2006 at 5:54:00 pm
Stewart Mandel and a few others had fUTLA going to the finals, like myself. I also saw many other “expert” brackets with all the above teams–including BC, Gonzaga, and Ohio State–in the Final Four. So again, maybe it’s because you get sucked into East Coast TV commentary more than I do, because I primarily get my info from CNNSI.com, ESPN.com (and occasionally ESPN), and the sports radio.
March 26th, 2006 at 5:55:29 pm
Also, Conventional Wisdom in NCAA tourney basketball has always been, once you get to the Final Four, any team can beat any team. This year that was true by Round 2.
March 26th, 2006 at 5:59:23 pm
UCLA is the exception thus far — the only Top 2 seed that’s made it. But again, my point isn’t really who people pick, it’s the bizarre overconfidence in those picks. So often you hear pundits saying things like “I really don’t think anyone in this region can challenge UConn” or whatever. They don’t seem to realize the percentages are actually against them in making such a statement — almost every team gets at least one major challenge, and a bunch of favorites always lose.
March 26th, 2006 at 6:02:01 pm
Eh, I don’t see it. Everyone knows this is what happens every March. The only surprise here is GMU making the Final Four.
March 26th, 2006 at 6:03:38 pm
Conventional Wisdom in NCAA tourney basketball has always been, once you get to the Final Four, any team can beat any team. This year that was true by Round 2.
I’d say it was true by Round 1. There were eight first-round upsets in 32 games, and four second-round upsets in 16 games. That’s the same percentage. Also, taking into account the huge first-round scares (BC-Pacific, Indiana-SDSU, Tennessee-Winthrop, even UConn-Albany)… yeah, I’d say your truism is just as true in the first round as in the second round (which is to say, not entirely true — there are some legitimate mismatches — but close).
March 26th, 2006 at 6:05:06 pm
Everyone knows this is what happens every March.
I know! Which is why I find the sort of statements I’m talking about so bizarre! That’s why I notice them — because every time, I’m like, WTF are you talking about! March Madness is NOT predictable; why are you pretending it is? Seriously, it’s not like I’m making this up. Pundits and announcers really do say these things. I watched a lot of basketball games and SportsCenters this February and March. :)
March 26th, 2006 at 6:21:39 pm
This tournament is downright Rovian, doncha think?
March 26th, 2006 at 6:22:28 pm
With a 64-team tournament, upsets are going to happen–the problem is, we never know which ones. It is hard for any team to win six games in a row against quality competition–it’s amazing to me that one team does it every year (of course that’s ridiculous, but maybe you see what I mean). So in making predictions, one has two choices: go with the chalk in almost all cases, pick a few 8-9 and 7-10 upsets; or go with your 13- and 14-seed upsets, on the assumption that they’ll be there.
The Oscar pool worked in the same way. I figured there would be an upset, so I took Giamatti over Clooney. Well, the favorite Clooney won, I was left playing catch-up, knowing that when the upsets DID come they would do me no good and I was screwed over double.
Ah, forget it. Go Gee Em!
March 26th, 2006 at 6:23:27 pm
WOW, that was awesome! The local DC channel ran a special report for George Mason, and the campus is going CRAZY!!!
The reporter starts by talking to the camera, pans over to a group of about 5 guys celebrating. You can see students running all around campus, cheering and celebrating. More and more start cheering into the camera. The reporter tries to air a video of students watching the game, it fails, and the feed goes back to the reporter’s area. She keeps commenting, having the presense of mind to keep describing the scene around her, saying, “If you could see this right now (we could), I am completely surrounded by excited students!” The camera pans 360 degrees, there students are all you can see now, you can’t even see the reporter. They are cheering, shouting, excited. It was awesome!
March 26th, 2006 at 6:39:58 pm
Message to UConn: Live by the REF GOD, die by the REF GOD.
March 26th, 2006 at 6:44:56 pm
I’ve been backing Mason from the start and had no doubt they would have been blown out long before this. This is truly a Cinderella Story!
Now that they are in the Final Four, here come the movie deals. I imagine Disney would be a natural. They’ll dust off the Cool Runnings script, switch it from bobsledding to CAA basketball, add another dude to the team and cast Kurt Russell in the John Candy role.
March 26th, 2006 at 6:57:12 pm
All the Gators need do now is hit free throws. If they do, it’s OVAH! :)
Eat it, Packer.
March 26th, 2006 at 7:06:23 pm
Why didn’t they have the Minneapolis regional in the Target Center, where the T-Wolves play? It would have been a much better atmosphere.
March 26th, 2006 at 7:11:10 pm
Jeff- the same reason TD Jesus is now obscured from within ND stadium.
March 26th, 2006 at 7:17:17 pm
Billy officially proclaimed that Nova needed (no, MUST) to make a move. They have not.
He cannot claim any credibility if they come back.
Eat it, Packer.
March 26th, 2006 at 7:19:25 pm
What I genuinely want to knw is what the odds were in a proposition bet on Thursday that all four number ones would go down.
Had to be 500 or more to 1.
Wow.
March 26th, 2006 at 7:20:22 pm
Ummmm . . . why is TD Jesus blocked from within the stadium?
March 26th, 2006 at 7:21:23 pm
More access for the faithful and more revenue for the ND corporation.
March 26th, 2006 at 7:27:23 pm
What I think was funny about the Mason/UConn match-up was that Mason’s “big man,” Jai Lewis, was like two inches shorter than one of UConn’s regular guys. Tony Skinn is only 6′1.” That’s like someone my height being out there. Mason figuratively and literally has been a “giant killer.”
March 26th, 2006 at 7:29:28 pm
HOLY SHIT!
“Reputation means nothing.” - Billy Packer
Eat it, Packer.
March 26th, 2006 at 8:16:08 pm
As I was lamenting Missouri hiring away Coach Anderson at UAB I looked for something else to occupy my mind. This post made me curious about all the “experts” picks for the Final Four so I looked around. Here is a summary of what I found. (Sorted by cumulative record of all Final Four picks.)
Final Four - (4)LSU, (2)UCLA, (11)George Mason, (3)Florida
Picked two correct:
14-2 Gregg Doyel(CBS) - (4)LSU, (1)Memphis, (1)UConn, (3)Florida
14-2 Stewart Mandel(CNNSI) - (4)LSU, (2)UCLA, (1)UConn, (1)V’nova
13-2 Andy Glockner(ESPN) - (1)Duke, (2)UCLA, (1)UConn, (3)Florida
13-2 Dennis Dodd(CBS) - (4)LSU, (2)UCLA, (1)UConn, (4) Boston College
Picked one correct:
12-3 J. Darin Darst(CBS) - (1)Duke, (2)UCLA, (1)UConn, (1)V’nova
12-3 Kelli Anderson(CNNSI) - (1)Duke, (2)UCLA, (1)UConn, (1)V’nova
11-3 Dick Vitale(ESPN) - (1)Duke, (2)UCLA, (1)UConn, (4)Boston College
10-3 Doug Gottlieb(ESPN) - (1)Duke, (4)Kansas, (1)UConn, (3)Florida
Picked none correct:
12-4 Brian De Los Santos(CBS) - (2)Texas, (1)Memphis, (1)UConn, (1)V’nova
12-4 Luke Winn(CNNSI) - (2)Texas, (1)Memphis, (1)UConn, (1)V’nova
10-4 Tony Mejia(CBS) - (2)Texas, (3)Gonzaga, (1)UConn, (4)Boston College
10-4 Seth Davis(CNNSI) - (1)Duke, (3)Gonzaga, (1)UConn, (1)V’nova
8-4 Jay Bilas(ESPN) - (1)Duke, (4)Kansas, (1)UConn, (1)V’nova
7-4 Julia Morrill(CNNSI) - (1)Duke, (3)Gonzaga, (6)Mich.St., (1)V’nova
7-4 Andy Katz(ESPN) - (1)Duke, (4)Kansas, (1)UConn, (4)Boston College
7-4 Pat Forde(ESPN) - (1)Duke, (4)Kansas, (1)UConn, (4)Boston College
7-4 Fran Fraschilla(ESPN) - (1)Duke, (4)Kansas, (1)UConn, (4)Boston College
6-4 Grant Wahl(CNNSI) - (1)Duke, (4)Kansas, (1)UConn, (2)Ohio St.
Summary:
12-for-72 overall
0-for-40 for #1 seeds
6-for-10 for #2 seeds
3-for-6 for #3 seeds
3-for-15 for #4 seeds
0-for-1 for #6 seeds
The two I feel a little sorry for are Santos and Winn. All four losers in the Elite Eight were their Final Four.
I was unable to find picks for Packer or Nantz.
March 26th, 2006 at 8:18:46 pm
Okay, okay, I’ll stop making fun of Doyel now, considering he’s got 2 Final Four teams and I have only 1. :)
March 26th, 2006 at 8:40:39 pm
Ed - the odds of all four #1s missing the Final Four are nowhere near as high as 500 to 1.
Even if you assume that the 1 seed has on average an 80% chance of winning each game (probably a bit generous, particularly in the Sweet 16 and Elite 8), that still means that each #1 has only a 40% chance of making the Final Four (80% ^4).
The odds of no #1 making it is then 60%^4, or about 13% - more like 1 in 8 than 1 in 500.
March 26th, 2006 at 8:47:02 pm
A long time ago Andrew posted about the possibility that smaller schools in big conferences are hurt from a recruiting standpoint.
I tend to think not. The allure of big time competition in the big conference should offset any increased competition from other big time recruiting schools.
There’s a nature/nurture issue at work here. Are NBA Hall of Famers all McDonald’s High School All-Americans? Some, surely. Other times they are guys like Scottie Pippen out of the University of Central Arkansas.
I think the big conferences have a similar effect on ballplayers as American Idol on small-time singers - performing on the big stage makes people better. The final 12 on that made-for-tv show tend to emerge much more successful than other aspiring nobody singers, some of which is due to exposure, but some must also be getting your ass chewed out by idiot Simon in front of 35 million people, and coming back stronger the next night.
In the same way, a second tier recruit at a school like Marquette should develop into a better basketball player by having several games each year against Top 10-caliber competition.
In any event, Duke University has about 6500 undergrads - small by any standard, but big on the NCAA stage.
March 26th, 2006 at 8:54:27 pm
Finally - the issue of upsets. Silently I listen to these so-called pundits talk about the likely lack of upsets in any given year, and I shake my head at how little the populace understands statistics.
Not statistics in the sense of being able to choose when to perform a parametric vs. non-parametric test, I mean understanding the implications of probability in the real world.
To wit: the hilarious assertion that “this is certainly the year of ‘no first-round upsets’”.
Consider these five first round games:
Pacific/BC
Northwestern State/Iowa
Xavier/Gonzaga
Winthrop/Tennessee
Davidson/Ohio State.
For all five games, you, like ESPN.com and Billy Packer, are very confident that the second team is significantly better than the first. Let’s say you believe that the second team will win 4 out of 5 times against the first.
So if all five of the above games are played over the same two day period, there should be about a 67% chance (2/3) that one of the five underdogs will win. The likelihood of all five favorites winning is 80%^5, or 33%. As long as we don’t have to designate which one, we should expect that 2 years out of 3, one of those games will be an upset.
Since one was an upset, that’s not a surprise at all, even if the underdogs are all fairly significant dogs.
Every year we freak out about these so-called upsets, when in reality the outcome is about how we would have predicted.
March 26th, 2006 at 8:58:02 pm
And one more on the stats front:
People are already working themselves up into a lather about the George Mason win ushering in a new era, the rise of the mid-major.
A wiser approach would be to enjoy the George Mason win for what it more likely is, a rare outcome not likely to be repeated anytime soon.
Indeed, when the mid-major chokes at the end of regulation and opens a door to the dominant school, experience tells us that the dominant school nearly always pulls it out in overtime.
The fact that UConn didn’t today doesn’t necessarily mean anything changed, indeed if the dominant school wins 9 out of 10 in today’s scenario, then once in a great while the little guy will shoot the lights out and provide a wonderful memory.
Seeing this happen again is likely as improbable as it seemed today when overtime began.
March 27th, 2006 at 12:06:23 am
One, final thought:
The fact that (typically) mid- to low-major 14 and 13 seeds tend to win infrequently in the tournament is solid evidence that the power conferences are quite a bit better than the mid-majors.
In fairness, those teams are playing 3 and 4 seeds, often power conference champions like BC. Still, the infrequency of their victories is evidence that the best of the low-to mid major isn’t very close to the best of the power conference. The probability of any one of those games going the way of the 13/14 seed is empirically quite low.
The gods of chance surely frowned on Billy Packer in 2006, serving up mid-major George Mason as the one team in 20? 30? to break through in the way they did. Aside from the obvious enjoyment of watching him be humbled, Packer has a point - the power conferences really ARE better.
For me, the fact that the power conferences are better is exactly the reason to invite more mid majors. I would much rather see Big Ten champ Iowa get knocked off by underrated Northwestern State than by undeserving Florida State. But that’s just me.
If the world really believed Rocky was as good as Apollo Creed/should have been favored, would those films ever have done as well as they did?
March 27th, 2006 at 12:26:23 am
Dude… STRAW MAN ALERT!!! No one is arguing that “the best of the low-to mid major” is as good as, or better than, “the best of the power conference.” No one! Not the most strident MVC, CAA and general mid-major partisans out there. Wichita State better than Duke? George Mason better than UConn? Er, most of the time? :) No, nobody is arguing that. What we are arguing is that teams like Bradley and George Mason — and Missouri State and Hofstra — are better than teams like Seton Hall, Florida State and Maryland. I.e., that the top tier of teams in the mid-majors (not the low-majors … when you start talking about the auto-bids from one-bid conferences, you’re already spouting irrelevancies re: the Packer debate) are better than the middling, medicore teams from the majors. Or at least, that they deserve a shot at the Dance more than those teams do. And that’s where Packer and Nantz were completely wrong… they were using the same absurd, twisted logic you are using, claiming that because the TOP TEAMS major-conferences typically do better, therefore a team like Maryland should get in over a team like George Mason. BULLSHIT! That’s a totally bogus argument. Nobody is claiming the Bradleys of the world should get #1 seeds. But do they deserve a chance over the Florida States? Absolutely.
So, please modify your argument so that is has something remotely to do with the actual issue at hand, and THEN maybe I’ll take you seriously if you want to contend that somehow “Packer has a point.” If, however, you think his “point” is merely that “the power conferences really ARE better,” you’re really unclear on the concept of what he was talking about. Everyone acknowledges that the power conferences are better, and the seedings reflect that. (Regular-season champion of the MVC: #7 seed. MVC tournament champion: #11 seed. Regular-season co-champions of the CAA: #9 and #11 seeds. Big East regular-season champion: #1 seed. Big East tournament champion: #5 seed. ACC regular-season and tournament champion: #1 seed. Do I need to go on?)
March 27th, 2006 at 7:40:32 am
Brendan,
The heart of your argument, if emphatics mean anything, is likely right here:
therefore a team like Maryland should get in over a team like George Mason. BULLSHIT!
with you of course arguing the contrary. Before I continue, I agree with your assertion, however…
Let’s be clear, your post used verbs like ‘deserve’ a lot, which is a sign of a subjective impression. To say that Billy Packer is wrong because the teams he advocates are ‘undeserving’ (as opposed to ‘empirically incorrect’) is nothing more than an opinion, no matter how vehemently you express it.
I’m on the side of the selection committee, not Packer and Nantz. But I’ve been watching the same tournament you have for lo these many years.
George Mason is the first at large team from a mid-major to translate the 6-11 type seed into a Final Four berth.
Big conference teams to do that? LSU in 1986. Kansas in 1988. Wisconsin/North Carolina in 2000. The Fab Five in 1992. Pitino’s Providence team in 1987. Etc.
Its a matter of opinion, of course, but you would be standing in a small crowd if you argued that 5000 simulations of Maryland in this year’s tournament would yield fewer Final Four appearances than Hofstra. You’d be like the guy in the new Verizon ads, facing the “network”, that is, the much larger crowd of hoops fans whose money would be on Maryland.
Can’t make it any clearer than that. Realize that this is NOT an argument to choose Maryland over Hofstra; rather support for Packer’s assertion that the likelihood of Maryland “doing well” in the tournament is surely greater than Hofstra’s.
March 27th, 2006 at 8:03:57 am
One more:
Your STRAW MAN! post essentially makes two arguments:
1) Duke is significantly better than Hofstra.
2) The last team out in the ACC (e.g. Maryland/Florida State) is no different than Hofstra.
Recalling the logic section of the LSAT, that would mean that …
3) Duke is significantly better than the last team out in the ACC (e.g. Maryland/Florida State).
That’s just stupid.
You can find countless blogs, one of which is Irishtrojan.com, of a dedicated fan of a big conference team lamenting several losses due to chancy factors, such as bad coaching, unlucky shots, unfortunate turnovers, whatever.
Surely if we cared to, we could find similar websites with names like IrishTerrapin.com or IrishSeminole.com lamenting the four - five losses either squad didn’t need that spelled the difference between no bid and a 4-5 seed.
Indeed, you need look no further than Gerry MacNamara’s desperation three at the end of the Cincinnati game, as the difference between Syracuse being
a) the team you dis as being objectively on a par with Hofstra,
and
b) Power conference tournament champion.
Were you provided with cult materials while you were in St. Louis?
March 27th, 2006 at 1:58:24 pm
straw man
n.
1. A person who is set up as cover or a front for a questionable enterprise.
2. An argument or opponent set up so as to be easily refuted or defeated.
3. A bundle of straw made into the likeness of a man and often used as a scarecrow.
4. A term used ad nauseam on Brendanloy.com. (see also “ad hominem attacks.�)
March 27th, 2006 at 4:42:15 pm
What is the fascination with the mid-majors?