Is a lower ranking better?
Since the Committee will prioritize location of the top seeds when setting up the bracket and all the projected one and two seeds are located east of the Mississippi, the top teams on each seed line will probably not be placed in the west. Therefore, the West will be the easiest region of the bracket. Given those parameters, we would prefer Michigan be ranked as the lowest three seed and placed out west. Regardless of where our boys are placed in the bracket or who is in their path, I have confidence that they can compete with anyone.
anecdotal examples are worthless......and usually result in a gambling bath
that would be weekend 2
Do you remember the Batusi?
No. (You do realize how illogical it would be to punish somebody for having a better season, right?)
While you're right that the weakest #1 seed will probably end up in the West region, they'll be paired with the strongest #2, even if that team has to travel across the country. If they wanted to stay closer to home, they should have been a #1 seed.
Don't care how easy the path is. Look at MSU and how far their cupcake schedule got them
March 12th, 2018 at 12:09 PM ^
There is a 600 mile gap between these 2 cities. I have a feeling the Houston basketball fans will not be flooding Wichita in droves.
Example, Duke/UNC might get Charlotte/Pitt, but go out west as the 2 if they advance.
there's already a thread for seeding/potential playing locations. This is a terribly uninformed post (teams in San Diego and Boise are only out "west" for first weekend pods, they don't all end up in the west bracket so your whole point is invalid) and could have easily been proposed in the other thread.
The West bracket will have the "worst" 1-seed, but also the best 2-seed as someone else pointed out. And theoretically, the lowest 4 seeds will feed into brackets with the top 1 seeds, so no, we don't want to be a low 4 seed.
For the top four seed bands, the committee places teams in the closest regional in their seed band, in order of where they are on the S-curve, as long as there is no other team from that conference in that region. This is why you see Virginia in the South, then Duke or UNC in the East. Since there are no western teams in the 1-3 seed range (unless Arizona jumps up and grabs a 3), then the West region may have the lowest-ranked 1, 2, and 3 seeds. They don't go with straight-up bracket integrity, but rather reward higher-ranked teams with proximity in regional sites.
So in that sense, it might be ideal to be the #12 team on the S-curve and get sent to the West region, perhaps with Xavier and Cincinnati as the top two seeds. Meanwhile Michigan State will either be in the Midwest or East with UNC or Duke.
Just, no.
They're not going to put the lowest-ranked 1, 2, and 3 seeds together.
They've put the lowest-ranked 1 & 2 seeds together before and got excoriated for it by the public, at which point they tweaked the bracketing rules to make sure it didn't happen again.
How, exactly, is playing a tougher #1 seed a "reward" for the top #2 seed, just because it's closer to home for both of them? How is it a "reward" for the top #1 seed to get that top #2 seed instead of the fourth #2 seed?
They'll go as close to the S-Curve as they can and still stay within the bracketing rules. You might see a team flip-flopped here or there -- they might swap the #5 and #6 overall seeds if they thought it made sense, for example -- but they're not going to put the #4, #8, and #12 overall seeds in one bracket.
March 12th, 2018 at 10:30 AM ^
Survive and advance. Pick your cliche, they are all true. All of the speculation will end soon. We have what it takes to win that first game. Let’s survive and advance. I believe in this team as well as the coaching staff to have them in the right frame of mind.