I think someone said this in a post below, but I truly believe that for Marquette to have some tourney success this year, it would be ideal to wind up as either a 6 or 11 seed. We're most likely in that 6-11 range anyway at this point, and I digress:
The 6/11 winner will play the 3/14 winner, and when you look at the type of teams projected as 3 seeds, I would much rather face a team in the second round the likes of Washington State, Southern Illinois, Virginia, Nevada, or Memphis.
Playing as a 7 or 10 seed, and winning in round 1, gets you a second round date with the likes of Kansas, Texas A&M, Florida, North Carolina. The 8/9 range is obviously even worse, even if MU managed to survive round 1.
To get a 6 seed, we'd probably have to beat Pitt Saturday night, and then win one/two in the BET. An 11 seed would mean lose Saturday, get bounced early the following Wednesday.
The draw is going to be very key to Marquette's tourney success. A 6 seed or 11 seed could just be the key to that success.
To get an 11 seed, we'd have to lose more games than we're going to play...like 3 or 4. Or, lose to Pitt by 60 and then get creamed in the Garden. That ain't gonna happen.
I suspect that if we beat Pitt and then lose in the first BET game, we'd actually be a 6 seed.
I agree that the idea is to stay away from the #1s and #2s for as long as possible. But, you just never know what will happen. I could see this being the year that a #16 beats a #1 and a #15 beats a #2. The top is not as strong as it once was.