Selection Show Live Blog
This is the placeholder for the live blog of the selection show. Join us at 6:00 to critique our performance, and the committee's performance.
5:58 - This is my first live blog, so please forgive all my typos and horrible English. Hope you (the one of you who is watching) enjoy!
6:00 - Louisville gets the overall #1 seed. Not a terrible choice, but remember despite winning both the Big East regular season and tournament, they still didn't play UConn and Pitt away from home.
6:03 - Off to a good start - all #1 seeds are right, though not in the right order.
6:09 - Man, these commercials are long. Did you know CBS covers the Masters?
6:14 - Arizona is our first miss. They were our first out, so I'll take that. So far one at-large miss, and 16 of 19 (84%) within 1 seed line - better than last year (so far...)
6:21 - Midwest thoughts - The SEC tournament champ for the second year in a row gets a seed of 13 or worse. #2 seed Memphis is shipped west - either they were lower on the S-Curve than expected or moved to balance the bracket with UConn being the lowest #1 seed. Also, Maryland gets in, so the BCS conference bubble teams are looking good. I'd hate to be Creighton, St. Mary's, or San Diego State right now. 2 at-large misses, and 29 of 35 (83%) within one seed line. Seeds still better than last year.
6:30 - West thoughts - Tony Kornheiser's Binghamton team will try to take down mighty Duke in Greensboro. As Seth Davis noted, Wisconsin squeaking in vs. Maryland getting a #10 is representative of the relative strengths of the ACC vs. Big 10. Villanova gets to play in Philadelphia, against American driving up I-95 from D.C. VCU pulled off the upset over Duke two years ago, and gets another shot at a big upset this year.
6:38 - South thoughts - The Crashing the Dance wife has become infatuated with Jonny Flynn and predicted they would be in the same region as CTD alma mater UNC, and she was proven right. Seth Davis says the Tar Heels have an easy road, but I'm not so sure about that. Non-power conferences get only 4 of 34 at-large bids, down from the 12 in 2004.
6:41 - Initial results: CTD matched last year's performance with 32 of 34 (94%) at-large correct. The two at-large missed by the model (Arizona and Maryland) were it's first and second teams out, so I can't really complain there. Better than last year with 55 of 65 (85%) within one seed line. (Woohoo!) Also 61 of 65 (94%) within 2 seed lines. Overall, I'm very pleased with this year.
6:51 - Interesting sound bites from the committee chair on the injuries question - it's the "most complicated part"; they "try not to guess" and "figure out exactly what they did".
6:54 - Bubble teams - They "played away" and won.
6:58 - Signing off. More commentary to follow, and stay tuned this week for some actual game-related posts.