March 22, 2004
March seeding madness
Well, after this weekend my bracket showing Maryland beating Gonzaga in the final got slammed into the recycling bin! (What a homer, I know!) What is also noticeable is the lack of blow-out games, even among a lot of the No. 2 vs. No. 15 teams. See Michael Wilbon:
While the elite programs lose their best players early and also miss out on the very top high school kids, UAB has five seniors. Nevada's experienced players (juniors Kevinn Pinkney and Kirk Snyder plus senior Todd Okeson) are simply better than Michigan State's players and it showed Thursday. Only the No. 1 seeds have a decided advantage anymore, and only for one game."Twenty years ago, this never happened," [Syracuse coach Jim] Boeheim said. "If you were an [elite] program, you'd win your first-round game by 20 points, your second by 15, and you'd maybe have a tough game [in the round of 16]. That's not the case now."
Still, those elite programs expect to win. And we expect them to win even though their players aren't much better than those of schools that don't have pedigree. The losses, even the close games, are a reflection of how little separation there is between the top 10 teams and those between 30 and 50.
