Saturday, November 16, 2013

Regionals and you: a primer

This year's 8 regional sites for the 2nd and 3rd round of the NCAA tournament are (hosts in parens):

Buffalo
Raleigh (NC State)
Orlando (Stetson)
Milwaukee (Marquette)
St Louis
San Antonio (UTSA)
Spokane (Wash. St)
San Diego (SDSU)

Which site is the closest site for your favorite team?  Let's take a look.  For the purposes of this exercise, I'm going to take the top 25 or so teams from my S-Curve.

St Louis:  Kentucky, Oklahoma St, Louisville, Kansas, Marquette, Wichita St, Creighton, Memphis
Holy logjam Batman!  Kentucky AND Kansas AND Ok State AND Louisville.  Only 2 can get this spot.  This is going to be a problem, and these 4 schools will battle all season for those 2 spots.  The good news for Oklahoma St is that there's a 2nd site (San Antonio) that would probably work just as well for them.  For the others, Milwaukee or Raleigh would be the 2nd preferred site, but the B1G and Duke/UNC may have a monopoly on those (see below).  Bottom line, it's entirely possible we see something funky like a 2 seed Louisville in Orlando.

As for Wichita and Creighton, they've got the perfect site sitting there in St Louis (it's where the MVC tournament is played), and literally no chance of getting there unless they're a 7 or 8 seed.  If either of them get a 3 or 4 seed, they're going to be shipped to Spokane.  Sorry.

Buffalo: Ohio St, Syracuse, UConn
Relatively open path for OSU and Syracuse here.  Ohio St is the one B1G team who prefer Buffalo to Milwaukee.  Syracuse will likely have to fend off the northeast Big East teams and UConn for that Buffalo spot.  However, with the other logjams throughout the regionals, the stakes are high - UConn could get shipped really, really west if they're a 4 seed.

Raleigh:  Duke, North Carolina, Georgetown, VCU, Virginia
For Georgetown, Raleigh is preferred, but Buffalo is close as well.

For Duke and UNC, it may seem like an open path to play near home.  NOTSOFAST.  Remember that St Louis logjam above?  If Louisville or Kentucky are the victims in that game of musical chairs, Either could go to Raleigh if Duke or UNC slip.  Duke or UNC in Orlando isn't the worst thing in the world for them, but it isn't Raleigh either.  Tread carefully.

Orlando:  Florida
Wide-open path for Florida to be in Orlando.  The 2nd team to be here will likely be one of the teams that are victims in the St Louis Musical Chairs game.

Milwaukee:  Michigan St, Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana
Just call this the B1G site.  The top 2 B1G teams (minus Ohio State) will play here.  Pretty open and shut case.

San Antonio: New Mexico, Baylor
While I don't list Ok State or Kansas here, there's a good chance this becomes a Big 12 site.  Sending the Big 12 schools here may be a way to alleviate pressure in St Louis.  Baylor has a pretty clear path to play in-state if they can get a protected seed.

As for New Mexico, this or San Diego would work.  For the Mountain West, if any other ones do well enough to get a protected seed, it's likely this or San Diego would be their site.  It's fairly open for them.

Spokane:  Gonzaga, Oregon
Wide-open for these 2 teams to play close to home.  Even if they're 4 or 5 seeds.

San Diego:  Arizona, UCLA
They'll probably host 1 and maybe 2 Pac-12 teams.  It'll likely depend on just how good the Pac-12 is.  If they don't host 2 Pac-12 teams, they'll likely host someone from the east coast.




A quick look at regional final sites:
Indianapolis (IUPUI), Memphis (Memphis), New York City (St John's), Anaheim

The big news here is that the Big 12 winner would prefer Memphis, Kentucky would take either Memphis or Indy, and the B1G winner would prefer Indy.  That's 3 teams for 2 spots.  With the ACC winner likely to prefer NYC, someone could get shipped west to Anaheim.  #4 on the S-Curve this year is the swing spot - it's not just enough to be a 1 seed.  You need to be a top 3 overall seed.

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