Joe Lunardi chats about our seed

[drewm88]

Ryan (Chicago) : With a decent Big East Tournament run, do you see Marquette getting any higher than a 5 seed?

SportsNation Joe Lunardi: (12:09 PM ET ) One chance in three to move up.



Jim (Chicago): I see you basically think Marquette will be a 5. If they happen to blow it against Seton Hall tonight could they slip to a 6 or god forbid a 7?

SportsNation Joe Lunardi: (12:18 PM ET ) I doubt they would slip below a No. 6 on the S-Curve, but remember the committee can move any team up or down one line for procedural reasons.

[NavinRJohnson]

but remember the committee can move any team up or down one line for procedural reasons.

Like setting up a cute little made for TV match-up between master and student? Still makes me mad.

[1990Warrior]

The only valid procedural reason I can think of is making sure that a team is not paired against a conference opponent until the Sw16.  Any others?

[drewm88]

A team can't play at home.
BYU can't play on Sundays. That was an issue a few years back.

Those are site problems, but they can result in a seed change.

[Pakuni]

but remember the committee can move any team up or down one line for procedural reasons.

Like setting up a cute little made for TV match-up between master and student? Still makes me mad.

Which is why it wouldn't surprise me in the least to see a 5/12 or 6/11 first-round matchup between Marquette and Western Kentucky.

[The Man in Gold]

The big one being unless the Big East gets 9 teams in, all 8 need to be in a different sub regional so that they can't meet until the elite 8.

In last year's case they had given out 4 - 2,3 seeds to BE teams which meant we could not be seeded as a 2,3, 6, or 7 since that would have set up a potential second round matchup with other BE teams.  Instead we had to be seeded 1,4,5, or 8 - Last years team was not a 5.  So we basically dropped one seed.

Maybe this year we move up a spot.

My Projections
GU #2
UL #2
UConn #3
ND #4/5
MU #6

[1990Warrior]

The thing I do not understand about them attempting to make the games more interesting (pathetic as it is) is how in the world this improves the TV ratings.  Do they really think that this is going to attract someone who would not normally be watching to tune in?   

Even if you wanted to watch the game, chances are that you could not because they can't cover the first two rounds adequately.

[drewm88]

The thing I do not understand about them attempting to make the games more interesting (pathetic as it is) is how in the world this improves the TV ratings.  Do they really think that this is going to attract someone who would not normally be watching to tune in?   

Even if you wanted to watch the game, chances are that you could not because they can't cover the first two rounds adequately.

There is no evidence that any selection/seeding/pairing is made with regards to matchup appeal. In fact, that is completely denied by everyone involved and everyone who covers it.

The selection committee doesn't care about tv ratings. It's the NCAA tournament. People will watch or they won't. Nobody tunes in to see Izzo face his former assistant.

[DegenerateDish]

Actually, this is the first year that teams from the same conference can start to meet each other as early as the second round.

[NavinRJohnson]

The thing I do not understand about them attempting to make the games more interesting (pathetic as it is) is how in the world this improves the TV ratings.  Do they really think that this is going to attract someone who would not normally be watching to tune in?   

Even if you wanted to watch the game, chances are that you could not because they can't cover the first two rounds adequately.

I don't think it was done to improve ratings necessarily..My theory is that they just got caught up in a little bit of a "wouldn't that be neat" moment. Beyond that, I do think they try on occasion, do things like create match-ups of contrasting styles, etc. I have no actual evidence to support this, just my own observations/opinions.

[Pakuni]

There is no evidence that any selection/seeding/pairing is made with regards to matchup appeal. In fact, that is completely denied by everyone involved and everyone who covers it.

The selection committee doesn't care about tv ratings. It's the NCAA tournament. People will watch or they won't. Nobody tunes in to see Izzo face his former assistant.

They can deny it all they want, and I tend to agree that any ratings boost would be negligible at best. But there was an inordinate amount of coaching "storylines" in the early-round matchups last year.

To wit:
Crean vs Izzo in the first round
Ohio State (Matta) vs. Xavier in the second round
Possible Illinois (Bruce Weber) vs. Southern Illinois in the second round
UCLA (Howland) vs. Pitt in the Sweet 16

Perhaps it was a coincidence, but it seemed kind of unusual to me.

[RJax55]

There is no evidence that any selection/seeding/pairing is made with regards to matchup appeal. In fact, that is completely denied by everyone involved and everyone who covers it.

The selection committee doesn't care about tv ratings. It's the NCAA tournament. People will watch or they won't. Nobody tunes in to see Izzo face his former assistant.

They can deny it all they want, and I tend to agree that any ratings boost would be negligible at best. But there was an inordinate amount of coaching "storylines" in the early-round matchups last year.

To wit:
Crean vs Izzo in the first round
Ohio State (Matta) vs. Xavier in the second round
Possible Illinois (Bruce Weber) vs. Southern Illinois in the second round
UCLA (Howland) vs. Pitt in the Sweet 16

Perhaps it was a coincidence, but it seemed kind of unusual to me.

I believe that it was just a coincidence. Otherwise, they would have matched Indiana (a 7 seed) against Texas Tech (a 10 seed) last year. If the committee did put stock on potential television ratings in creating specific match-up, that game would have definitely been played.

[PuertoRicanNightmare]

There is no evidence that any selection/seeding/pairing is made with regards to matchup appeal. In fact, that is completely denied by everyone involved and everyone who covers it.

The selection committee doesn't care about tv ratings. It's the NCAA tournament. People will watch or they won't. Nobody tunes in to see Izzo face his former assistant.

They can deny it all they want, and I tend to agree that any ratings boost would be negligible at best. But there was an inordinate amount of coaching "storylines" in the early-round matchups last year.

To wit:
Crean vs Izzo in the first round
Ohio State (Matta) vs. Xavier in the second round
Possible Illinois (Bruce Weber) vs. Southern Illinois in the second round
UCLA (Howland) vs. Pitt in the Sweet 16

Perhaps it was a coincidence, but it seemed kind of unusual to me.

How ridiculous. Has it occurred to you that what you're asking them to do is go through all the "potential" matchups and go through the resumes of every coach to be sure they don't know each other.

That's the biggest myth in the tournament.

Do you honestly think there is a person walking this earth that wouldn't have otherwise watched our "game" against MSU last year who tuned in because of the coaching match up? Who even remembers that Crean was there 9 years ago?

Good grief!

[Pakuni]

How ridiculous. Has it occurred to you that what you're asking them to do is go through all the "potential" matchups and go through the resumes of every coach to be sure they don't know each other.

That's the biggest myth in the tournament.

Do you honestly think there is a person walking this earth that wouldn't have otherwise watched our "game" against MSU last year who tuned in because of the coaching match up? Who even remembers that Crean was there 9 years ago?

Good grief!

Sigh ...

I'm not asking the committee to do anything. Rather, I simply was pointing out the unusual amount of coaching-related storylines early in last year's tourney. Though, frankly, I'd find it hard to believe many athletic directors and league commissioners would have to scour Thad Matta's resume to know he coached at Xavier or do a Lexis search to learn that Ben Howland was at Pitt before taking the UCLA job.
Did the committee go out of its way to create those match-ups? Maybe not.
Were they aware of the potential storylines? I'd be willing to bet they were.

And if you had bothered to read my post rather than simply inventing something to argue against, you'd have seen that I wrote that any ratings boost from an interesting coaching matchup would "be negligible at best."

Here's what that big word means:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/negligible

[TJ]

There is no evidence that any selection/seeding/pairing is made with regards to matchup appeal. In fact, that is completely denied by everyone involved and everyone who covers it.

The selection committee doesn't care about tv ratings. It's the NCAA tournament. People will watch or they won't. Nobody tunes in to see Izzo face his former assistant.

They can deny it all they want, and I tend to agree that any ratings boost would be negligible at best. But there was an inordinate amount of coaching "storylines" in the early-round matchups last year.

To wit:
Crean vs Izzo in the first round
Ohio State (Matta) vs. Xavier in the second round
Possible Illinois (Bruce Weber) vs. Southern Illinois in the second round
UCLA (Howland) vs. Pitt in the Sweet 16

Perhaps it was a coincidence, but it seemed kind of unusual to me.

How ridiculous. Has it occurred to you that what you're asking them to do is go through all the "potential" matchups and go through the resumes of every coach to be sure they don't know each other.

That's the biggest myth in the tournament.

Do you honestly think there is a person walking this earth that wouldn't have otherwise watched our "game" against MSU last year who tuned in because of the coaching match up? Who even remembers that Crean was there 9 years ago?

Good grief!

I think they did some of those matchups on purpose - especially the Ohio St. - Xavier game and our game.  To answer your question, I don't think that the ratings were improved because of the story/match up.  But that has nothing to do with the question of whether the pairing was made on purpose to be "cute."  That's a question of whether it actually worked or not (if it was done on purpose).

Also, I think a lot of people remember that Crean was coaching under Izzo 9 years ago.  There was a lot of talk about it during the week leading up to the game, it comes up all the time when coaching vacancies happen on ESPN and other teams' message boards.  The mainstream public might not remember, but many certainly do.  I'm sure that a few of the members of the committee were aware of it.

[ChicosBailBonds]

For what it's worth, I'm friends with a former head of the committee who is still the commissioner of a conference (pretty good one).  I asked him about this several years ago and he said the "interesting" matchups are all coincidence.  The ratings are going to be good regardless, the venues are largely soldout regardless.

There are storylines all over the place that present themselves regardless of how they seed the teams, and as he told me, they just don't have time to be thinking about those types of things.

Take it for what it's worth.

[drewm88]

There is no evidence that any selection/seeding/pairing is made with regards to matchup appeal. In fact, that is completely denied by everyone involved and everyone who covers it.

The selection committee doesn't care about tv ratings. It's the NCAA tournament. People will watch or they won't. Nobody tunes in to see Izzo face his former assistant.

They can deny it all they want, and I tend to agree that any ratings boost would be negligible at best. But there was an inordinate amount of coaching "storylines" in the early-round matchups last year.

To wit:
Crean vs Izzo in the first round
Ohio State (Matta) vs. Xavier in the second round
Possible Illinois (Bruce Weber) vs. Southern Illinois in the second round
UCLA (Howland) vs. Pitt in the Sweet 16

Perhaps it was a coincidence, but it seemed kind of unusual to me.

There was an explanation above for why we played MSU.
I haven't looked, but I bet if you look at the sweet 16 teams each year, it wouldn't be hard to find multiple coaching connections like that.
The fact is that all kinds of coaches have histories with all kinds of schools. Add in the fact that they look to avoid conference matchups in the tournament, and the fact that coaches are less inclined to swap schools in the same conference, and you have a reason for these matchups.

They don't care about matchups. I refuse to believe anything else. It's been reported they first determine who makes it. Then they rank them all. Then they place the high seeds close to home and work their way down, fitting in teams where conference foes/sites don't prevent them. They don't have time to find interesting story lines.

Besides, we could have a story with a whole lot of teams in this tourney. All BE teams, Madison, old Conference USA foes, , Tenn (Pearl), Michigan State, WKU, Duke (splitting 2 games last 2 years), UCLA, Kansas, Kentucky, UNC (all from 03. Howland and Williams were the coaches we played that year.) That's off the top of my head. Point is, you go looking for an angle, you'll find one.

[RawdogDX]

There is no evidence that any selection/seeding/pairing is made with regards to matchup appeal. In fact, that is completely denied by everyone involved and everyone who covers it.

The selection committee doesn't care about tv ratings. It's the NCAA tournament. People will watch or they won't. Nobody tunes in to see Izzo face his former assistant.

They can deny it all they want, and I tend to agree that any ratings boost would be negligible at best. But there was an inordinate amount of coaching "storylines" in the early-round matchups last year.

To wit:
Crean vs Izzo in the first round
Ohio State (Matta) vs. Xavier in the second round
Possible Illinois (Bruce Weber) vs. Southern Illinois in the second round
UCLA (Howland) vs. Pitt in the Sweet 16

Perhaps it was a coincidence, but it seemed kind of unusual to me.

First of all 4 is not a lot.  second of all i'd like to see you try and put together a bracket that didn't have 'storylines'.  Seriously every possible sweet 16 matchup without a single coaching connection?  It might be imposible while working within the boundries of the selection committee.  If they did care there would be 4 a round.

[1990Warrior]

Actually, my biggest complaint about last year was dropping to an eight. Presumably, Mcneal's injury status would have had more to do with this than a coach vs. coach match up.  Either way, I thought we were not treated fairly last year.

[Pakuni]

First of all 4 is not a lot.  second of all i'd like to see you try and put together a bracket that didn't have 'storylines'.  Seriously every possible sweet 16 matchup without a single coaching connection?  It might be imposible while working within the boundries of the selection committee.  If they did care there would be 4 a round.

OK, take a look at the previous three brackets and see if there are as many of these types of situations. I don't see that many, but maybe I'm missing some.
And, for the third time, I agree that this could be a complete coincidence. But it's definitely unusual and I'd wager the committee, while not necessarily setting these matchups intentionally, was fully aware of them.

2006:
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/ncaatourney06/bracket

2005:
http://sports-att.espn.go.com/ncb/ncaatourney05/bracket

2004:
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/ncaatourney04/bracket

[RawdogDX]

First of all 4 is not a lot.  second of all i'd like to see you try and put together a bracket that didn't have 'storylines'.  Seriously every possible sweet 16 matchup without a single coaching connection?  It might be imposible while working within the boundries of the selection committee.  If they did care there would be 4 a round.

OK, take a look at the previous three brackets and see if there are as many of these types of situations. I don't see that many, but maybe I'm missing some.
And, for the third time, I agree that this could be a complete coincidence. But it's definitely unusual and I'd wager the committee, while not necessarily setting these matchups intentionally, was fully aware of them.

2006:
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/ncaatourney06/bracket

2005:
http://sports-att.espn.go.com/ncb/ncaatourney05/bracket

2004:
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/ncaatourney04/bracket

Do you really think i'm going to go through every match up and every possible match up for three years of tournaments and look at every coach and check his coaching background against possible teams and other coaches to see if they were at the same place at the same time?  Why the hell would i do that?