(03-14-2010 05:45 PM)SilverPhoenix Wrote: Say this with me.
2 Seeds aren't seeded. 2 Seeds only get Pod and Regional Protection (should they deserve it.), which may be worth more than a 1 seed in certain situations. Case in point, Syracuse!
Also, West Virginia got the Carrier Dome, Villanova goes to Houston to possibly face a team from freaking Waco. Please tell me you didn't want Duke so badly, that you would give up THOSE friendly confines?
Sounds like there seeded to me...but I'm sure you know more about basketball then Huggins
Jackson
WVU none too happy with No. 2
Mountaineers feel slighted by NCAA tournament seeding
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MORGANTOWN - Da'Sean Butler and his teammates sat in a hotel ballroom Sunday evening hoping for a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament.
They didn't get it.
In truth, though, that might be for the best. Because as it turns out, the Big East tournament champion Mountaineers were actually snubbed beyond just the No. 1 seeds, dropping all the way to the third No. 2 seed in the tournament.
Talk about incentive.
"It's really not that big a deal,'' Butler said. "Now we just have to prove that we deserved to be a No. 1 seed.''
Or at least the top No. 2 seed.
"It's just like my freshman year when we were the last team left out [of the NCAA tournament field],'' Butler said. "We went into the NIT with a chip on our shoulders and something to prove. I think we have something to prove again.''
When the pairings were announced Sunday night, West Virginia was placed as a No. 2 seed in the East Regional. The Mountaineers (27-6) were assigned to the Buffalo first-round site and will face No. 15 seed Morgan State (27-9) on Friday. The game will be the first of the day, tipping off at 12:15 p.m. at HSBC Arena.
If West Virginia wins that game, it would stay in Buffalo for a Sunday game against the winner of the first-round matchup between No. 7 seed Clemson (21-10) and No. 10 seed Missouri (22-10). The survivor there moves on to the Sweet 16 site at the Carrier Dome in Syracuse. The top seed in the region is Kentucky, while the No. 3 is New Mexico and the No. 4 is Wisconsin. If the higher-seeded teams all win - which, of course, seldom happens - the Sweet 16 matchups would be WVU-New Mexico and Kentucky-Wisconsin.
West Virginia coach Bob Huggins wasn't complaining about the matchups because he figures most of the time that's just the luck of the draw. And, as he said last week, often times the look of the draw can change dramatically from one round to the next because of the inevitable upsets.
Still, Huggins was miffed that his team slipped all the way to the third No. 2 seed after seemingly putting itself in contention for a No. 1 seed with a Big East tournament championship. But Kansas State was the top No. 2 seed and Villanova slipped in as the second No. 2 ahead of the Mountaineers. That despite West Virginia's RPI ranking of No. 4 and the No. 3 strength of schedule in the country. Kansas, Kentucky, Duke and Syracuse were the four No. 1 seeds, in that order, with respective RPI rankings of 1, 2, 3 and 5.
"I thought statistically we were a No. 1,'' Huggins said. "The disappointing thing is when they stand up there and say, 'Let's look at the full body of work.' If you look at the full body of work we were probably a one. But I didn't think we were going to be a one. I thought we were going to be a two. But to be the third two, I don't understand that.''
The most baffling thing about the seeds was West Virginia being placed behind Villanova. Kansas State had the No. 6 RPI and the second-toughest schedule in the country. And playing in a different conference (Big 12), comparisons are difficult.
But Villanova was No. 10 in the RPI, had just the No. 22 schedule, lost five of its last seven games - including a home loss to West Virginia - and was beaten in the first game of the Big East tournament. The Wildcats also had a worse overall record (24-7) and finished with the same league mark as the Mountaineers. The teams tied for second in the Big East with Pitt, and WVU won the league's tie-breaker over Villanova for the No. 3 seed.
Still, sometimes the seeds don't matter all that much when looking at the brackets. But the slip did move West Virginia out of the regions with the two lowest top seeds - Duke and Syracuse - and into the bracket led by Kentucky, the second No. 1 seed behind Kansas.
As a result, if West Virginia wins its opener against Morgan State, the Mountaineers will face a pressing team in either Missouri or Clemson. And that's something the Mountaineers have had trouble with at times.
"In the second round we're going to have to handle the press, which we've done a pretty good job of lately,'' Huggins said. "But [either team] is going to press for 40 minutes.''
Morgan State earned its trip to the tournament by beating South Carolina State, 68-61, in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference tournament. The Bears own a win over Arkansas in Fayetteville earlier this season, but in their other three games against power conference teams they fell by nine at Louisville, by 30 at Minnesota and by 16 at Baylor. All three of those teams are in the NCAA tournament.
Morgan State also lost 75-66 in a Bracket Buster game late last month against Murray State, another NCAA tournament team.
The Bears are coached by Todd Bozeman, the former California coach who in Berkeley had Jason Kidd on his roster. Huggins coached against Bozeman and Cal while Huggins was at Cincinnati.
"I know Todd Bozeman very well. That's about it,'' Huggins said when asked about his knowledge of Morgan State basketball. "I don't know anything about their players, but I [coached] against Todd when he was at Cal and had Jason Kidd and those guys. ... We guarded them a lot better after [Kidd] left, by the way.''
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How exactly did Nova get rated higher then WVU?
