Final Four - Is this fair?

[ritarivas89]

Fair. 1 less day on one hand. In the other: Home crowd advantage over 1 seed NC State. This minor stuff balances out.

So Stanford and South Carolina get an extra day of rest before the Final Four. And they don't play each other. Is this fair? Is this the way it has worked in the past? Seems to me the two teams that won Sunday should play each other, and the two teams that win Monday should play each other. What do others think?

 

[HopJim]

Fair. 1 less day on one hand. In the other: Home crowd advantage over 1 seed NC State. This minor stuff balances out.

UConn's energy has got to be at an all-time high. Get them in the gym asap for the next game.

 

[ochoopsfan]

NCAA helps UConn out by making their game. the late game on Friday Night

 

[meyers7]

Nope. That's why they play the games, as an old Rutgers fan, long deceased, used to proclaim whenever anyone suggested Rutgers (or the opponent) should win or lose a particular game.

I stick by what I've said, the gap between the top couple lines and the rest is, well, significant.

No, that would mean March Madness has finally come to the women game. Teams just give it all they have during tournament time and I love it!

It would seem there are quite a few on here who do not understand what "seeding" means.

I realize message boards don't attract the brightest, but I mean come on. I didn't realize we were this bad.

 

[faithfulfan]

So Stanford and South Carolina get an extra day of rest before the Final Four. And they don't play each other. Is this fair? Is this the way it has worked in the past? Seems to me the two teams that won Sunday should play each other, and the two teams that win Monday should play each other. What do others think?

UCONN has an excellent chance to win it all, no other team can boast 3- #1 high school recruits, we've got the talent!

 

[KnightBridgeAZ]

It would seem there are quite a few on here who do not understand what "seeding" means.

I realize message boards don't attract the brightest, but I mean come on. I didn't realize we were this bad.

Of course they make mistakes seeding. Creighton way under-seeded. My team, Arizona, over-seeded. At least in my opinion. I'm not defending the accuracy of the seeding for virtually any sport.

But - you seem to be saying that if they are seeded correctly there are no upsets. If that is the case, then lets just declare South Carolina (or whoever you think is the #1 team) the champion and not play the games. Teams can be seeded correctly and pull the upset.

I followed Rutgers for years. I do not believe that Rutgers was ever a better team or better coached than UConn (sorry, other Rutgers fans). But we won 5 games in like 3 years. How did that happen if you don't believe that upsets can happen, even when teams are correctly seeded.

 

[meyers7]

But - you seem to be saying that if they are seeded correctly there are no upsets.

No, not saying that at all. Although true. My point was the flip side of that. I'm trying to say (and obviously I either suck at saying it or it's going over many people's heads) is that IF the tournament held to chalk, then it would be a perfectly seeded tournament. The more it strays from chalk, the worse the seeding was.

AND, since this tournament has had quite a few (seems more than normal) upsets, it was one of the poorer seeded tournaments. However, we are still getting 1,1,1,2 in the FF. So they did pretty well at the top.

 

[KnightBridgeAZ]

No, not saying that at all. Although true. My point was the flip side of that. I'm trying to say (and obviously I either suck at saying it or it's going over many people's heads) is that IF the tournament held to chalk, then it would be a perfectly seeded tournament. The more it strays from chalk, the worse the seeding was.

AND, since this tournament has had quite a few (seems more than normal) upsets, it was one of the poorer seeded tournaments. However, we are still getting 1,1,1,2 in the FF. So they did pretty well at the top.

Ok, got you. True on what perfect seeding means. Agree that - on the whole - the more it strays the more likely seeding had mistakes, however:

"The more it strays from chalk, the worse the seeding was" might be arguably true, but it would require some qualification. The wins of 2 lower seeded teams, such as Creighton or South Dakota might suggest under-seeding, but there was really nothing in their records that could have produced them seeded in the top 16, where this would be chalk. Similarly, it is often said, the 4/5, 8/9 matchups are toss-ups. In many cases, there really isn't a lot of difference between teams on those lines and I would be hard put to call it "bad seeding" across the board if upsets occur along those lines.

But as you say, if there are upsets everywhere, one could indeed argue that there were significant seeding errors.