This discussion has crept into the other tournament threads so I think it needs it's own thread now to keep the other threads on track. I've already said way too much concerning this topic to just repost it here, but in short... to me the pod system is great because it allows the commitee to seed teams with greater accuracy since they can ignore placing them in the correct geographical region for the most part. In my opinion, Kansas, Texas, and Oklahoma all earned the right to play close to home. The commitee ranked Texas is the best, followed by Oklahoma, then Kansas based on their seedings. So Texas gets home court advantage in the regionals, Oklahoma gets home court advantage in the first and second round, and Kansas gets a travel-friendly site for the first and second round (Oklahoma City). As a KU fan, I felt after winning the Big XII, we earned the right to play someplace where our fans could easily travel to at some point during the tournament. We played in OKC, then got shipped out to Anaheim, and now in New Orleans, which is totally fine with me, just as long as we get something. So that covers the pod system and how the commitee can now seed teams based off of 90% skill level, and 10% geographical location. There's always going to be a team with home court advantage in the tournament. You can't solve that. Do you ban teams from playing in their home state? No, cause that solves nothing cause KU could still play in Kansas City (In Missouri, 30 minutes from Lawrence). The only rule the NCAA has about home court advantage is that you can't play on your actual home court, meaning KU could never play at Allen Fieldhouse. That's understandable cause you just feel so comfortable at home. So from the complaints so far, I've seen that we want teams seeded according to the actual geographical region we, meaning MSU not playing in the South but rather the Midwest, but yet we don't want teams playing too close to home. Well the only solution I can get from that is having hosting sites not in the region they should be in. Meaning East teams playing in San Antonio for the regional and maybe... Spokane and Tampa for the first and 2nd round. Therefore Texas and MSU are placed in the proper region, the midwest, but Texas doesn't get home court advantage. Huh? Bottom line... the pod system is great, because it gives those teams who earned the right for travel-friendly sites for the 1st and 2nd round a place close to home to play. Nobody ever said the teams playing in the South bracket had to actually be in the south, they just say the host site for the south is actually in the south. And home-court advantage has always been there, and it always will be there. You can't avoid it with so many schools.
Good idea for a thread. Hopefully we can keep it good. I would see nothing wrong with Kansas playing in Kansas City cause Kemper Arena is in Missouri, not Kansas. I don't have as much of a beef with Texas cause the #1 seeds should be given the advantage. But Texas should have been the midwest #1 and Kentucky in the south. But we know that the NCAA put Texas in San Antonio to make money. But why wasn't Texas allowed to play in OKC (being that they were a one seed) instead of putting them in Birmingham. Was it cause the regional was in San Antonio? Cause based on seedings, Texas should have been in OKC since it is closer and more convenient for them. Just wondering.
It is literally about 2 minutes into Missouri. So it should be ok for KU to play at Kemper, 30 minutes away, but not in Wichita, 3 hours away, because it is in the same state? Just look at it this way... Don't see it as the East, West, South, Midwest regions, look at it as region I, II, III, and IV. That's essentially what it is because the geographical location of the school doesn't have much of an impact in terms of where a school is placed. It's all about where the host sites are. The selection commitee tries it's hardest to place top seeded schools closer to home. In the longhorns case, sure money was a big factor cause we know from the Big XII tourny that Texas doesn't support basketball if there isn't a Texas school involved p), but Kansas and Oklahoma City deserved to be in Oklahoma City because that's most fair for those three schools, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. Texas, the high seed, gets placed at home for the later rounds, and Oklahoma and Kansas the lower seeded teams get placed at/near home for the earlier rounds before getting shipped to the coasts. At first glance it didn't make sense why Kentucky was in the Midwest and Texas in the South, but after watching everything play out it totally makes sense. Kentucky is I think a little closer to Minnessota than Texas is. It also makes no sense to ship the highest overall seeded team (Texas played the winner of the play in game, the lowest overall seeded teams) across the country when there is a regional in their home state. As the #1 overall seed (Why they picked Texas for it versus Kentucky or Arizona is a different story) they earned the right to play at home. The labels they give the regions are just convinient labels, that's it. Kansas City Chiefs isn't in the West, but the Chiefs play in the AFC West. The Cowboys play in the NFC East. Kansas played into that decision. Like I said above, it was most fair for everyone, kU and OU play early round near home and UT plays later rounds at home. Because there is so many teams, and that changes from year to year, and because the host cities change year after year, seeding teams isn't a science. There is two main rules that I know of... Teams can't play on their home court and teams in the same conference can't play each other in the first two rounds. Other than that seeding just comes down to a lot of opinions from the commitee members based on what they think is fair and what makes most sense. Although we can't always rely on them 100% to make sense because Texas was givin the #1 overall seed because one member of the commitee said "They beat Oklahoma twice and Kansas once." They did beat OU twice, but Kansas beat Texas in the only time they played. That led to Kansas, who should have been the top seed from the big XII (They won the Big XII title) getting a #1 seed instead of a #2 seed. Yeah, so that was a big screw up but in the end I'm fine with it because it led to Kansas being able to beat Duke and Arizona, two revenge games en route to another Final Four appearance.
KU didn't deserve to be ranked ahead of Texas in the NCAA's based on the preseason period. The only reason they were the "conference champions is they played an unbalanced schedule of north division opponenets (only by comparison of the Big XII). Good for them. They beat UT head to head (by like 3 or something at KU, see you guys next year). UT played a tougher non-conference schedule, and played in the tougher part of the division. We deserved a higher seed. With regards to the pods, Lunardi had an excellent article on espn.com recently. Of course he cited an argument that I had made. IF UT is #1 and KU is a #2, why is UT in Birmingham against a possible LSU team and not KU's first and second round games? This made no sense to me. The benefit under the pod system should go to the higher seed. That being said, Syracuse could have been switched out with any number of teams such as Duke, Xavier, or Marquette so that the #3 seed doesn't have a home court advantage. My matchups would have had Marquette in the East against OU and KY against Syracuse in MN. Truth is the only reason that this type of move is done is financial and that is wrong, wrong, wrong. It woudl have been that easy to move these teams around so that a #1 seed OU doesn't have to play Syracuse in Albany frigging NY and #1 seed KU doesn't have to play Marquette in MN. The tournament people really screwed up big time this year, in my mind. (just not with regards to TX)
The reason behind Texas and Syracuse ending up where they were... money, money, money. Im just agreeing with Wilbon though. Discuss... http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45382-2003Mar29.html "It was quickly crystal clear why Texas was given a No. 1 seed over Kansas and why Texas was placed in the South Region while No. 1-ranked Kentucky was shipped to Minneapolis. The NCAA decided it had to sell more tickets. The muckety-mucks in the NCAA would deny it until the cows come home, but that's the case. People with intimate knowledge of the ticket situation here said fewer than 20,000 seats had been sold before Selection Sunday. You know what 20,000 looks like in a domed stadium, even with only half the building being used? It looks empty."
I know that Marquette had a lot of fans at the Metrodome. But it is like a 5 hour trip from Milwaukee to Minneapolis (while traveling at a pretty good speed). And Marquette is a small school. I don't think that this arguement holds up well. If Wisconsin had made the elite 8 against anyone at the Metrodome, then the complaint would be justified.
Say Wha???? KU's non-conference... 8 of the 13 non-conference teams were in the tournament (Texas had 3, right?). KU played UNC, Florida, Arizona, Tulsa, Oregon, and Cal. Texas played Notre Dame, Georgia, and Arizona. Tell me again how UT's non-conference was harder than KU's? Now about whether KU deserved a higher seed. There was a lot of debate before the seedings as to which team was the odd-team out as #1 seeds, strong cases can be made for all three teams to get a #2 seed, the selection commitee avoided that problem by screwing up the result of the KU/UT game. I guess we'll never know exactly how they would have ranked the teams. Texas beat OU, OU beat KU, KU beat UT, who knows.
The pod system is okay, doesn't matter either way to me. I kinda prefer the old version were you would see everyone from your half of the bracket play in one city. But the pod system is in place to try to reward the teams that played good during the regular season. I can live with that. I still believe that Kansas got screwed out of a one seed. They won the toughest conference (didn't share it) and advanced to the semifinals of their conference tourney. Oklahoma finished in third place, but won the conference tourney. Texas was second in conference, but flamed out in the quarterfinals of conference tourney. I would have given Kansas one of the #1 seeds and Texas/Oklahoma having the other one.
It may not have been tougher, but at least Texas got a tough non-conference win away from home when they beat Georgia. Oh wait, KU beat Tulsa. My bad. Texas beat OU twice, in Austin and in Norman. I imagine that beating a fellow #1 seed twice always looks good in the committee's eyes. Meanwhile, KU was mediocre on the road this year and I'm pretty confident that the only reason why they beat UT was because the game was in Lawrence. I mean, really, who did KU beat on the road this year? Texas Tech? Tulsa? GREAT.
the only reason i hate it is b/c i have two schools with personal interests that have been royally screwed by a system that is suppose to place higher seeded team in regions closer to home. tell me how two years ago, ohio state won the big ten tournament and title, but was then shipped out to new mexico for their first round game <as a 4 seed> while illinois <also a 4 seed, but lost to ohio state> was seeded in chicago? it made no sense when ohio state had defeated illinois and was the big ten champion... this year; dayton got shipped all the way out to washington state after winning the a-10 tournament and being a 5th seed. plain and simple; it is a good system that makes the ncaa's a lot of money and to teams that benefit from playing close to home...it is nice, but when your teams gets screwed by the system you are not going to like it, hence i dont like it
Because they got to play a weaker conference schedule than Texas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, and Texas Tech. By winning one lousy game against a garbage Iowa State team (RPI in the 90s). Losing both games vs. Texas didn't help. In the quarterfinals, Texas lost to Texas Tech (RPI in the 40s). I'm sure that you would say that playing Texas Tech and playing Iowa State aren't exactly equivalent. If KU wanted a #1 seed, maybe they should've gotten a halfway decent win on the road. Texas beat Oklahoma twice, in Austin and in Norman. The one time KU played Oklahoma, in Norman, they were beaten by Oklahoma. All their big wins this year came in Lawrence. If KU had at least made the final of the Big XII tournament, they might've had a better argument for a #1 seed. But when they first faced a quality team in the semis of the conference tournament, they lost. Sorry, but the committee got it right. Texas and Oklahoma were the two best teams in the Big XII over the course of the season, but were hampered by a tougher conference schedule than Kansas.
In non-conference... Texas beat 25th ranked Georgia on the road, Kansas beat 29th ranked Cal on the road. Whoopdy doo. When Texas beat Georgia, Georgia was ranked 16th. When KU beat Tulsa, Tulsa was ranked 18th. Throw in the tournament and KU has beaten Duke and Arizona on nuetral sites, Texas has beaten Purdue and UNC-Ashville. We could go all day about this. All I said was strong cases can be made for any of those three teams being ranked in any order. It's all opinion, quit stating it as if it was fact.
The problem I see with your arguement is that it's got one big hole in it. Who's to say OSU playing in New Mexico was the fault of the pod system? Kansas beat Texas head to head and won the Big XII title outright, but the commitee still seeded them higher than Kansas. So if the commitee ranked both Illinois and OSU 4 seeds, they could have very well seeded Illinois higher than OSU, therefore allowing them the right to play at home. And winning the A-10 and being a 5th seed doesn't really earn you the right to play near home.
First, Dayton was a four seed. Yes, they pissed down their legs but at least let me enjoy the fact they were a four seed. And, winning the conference tournament by itself doesn't really keep you close to home. But Dayton's resume was much stronger than simply winning the conference tournament and, under the old system, earning the four seed in the Midwest region would have kept them closer to home. Instead, Dayton got a nice 2,100 mile trip to Spokane with a 11:00 p.m. Eastern start. I wouldn't have a problem with Spokane if Dayton were in the West region but they weren't. And although Dayton lost, I can assure you this isn't sour grapes.
True, but considering another 4 seed was Illinois, Dayton would have had to be seeded above them to get to play in either Oklahoma City or Indianapolis (assuming those would have been the midwest sites). Maybe they would have been seeded the top 4 seed and still had to go play in Oklahoma City because that's where the #4 seed was set to play. Now do you see the benifit of the pod system? Had Dayton been the #1 4-seed they would have been able to play in Indy versus playing in OKC if that was what was determined for the #4 seed before the tournament. How about this example... 2001 midwest hosts were Kansas City and Dayton. KC hosted the #2 and #3 seeds and Dayton hosted the #1 and #4 seeds. Kansas got seeded a #4 and sent to Dayton versus playing in Kansas City. Under the pod system that most likely wouldn't have happened. I'll gaurantee you they looked at that KU situation and scratched their head. The following year the pod system was instituted. At least under this system reasons for sending Dayton out west can be justified versus it just being blind luck. So don't tell me about being screwed.
I never said Dayton got screwed by being sent to Spokane (although I did have a gripe with the start time). All I said was under the old system they would have stayed closer to home if they were in the Midwest region. Under the pod system the committee has flexibility to increase the income and Dayton apparently didn't have the pull to stay closer to home. It's unfortunate, but that's the way it works.