1 vs 8/9.....a history lesson

[DawgatAuburn]

<span style="font-size: 16pt; font-family: Tahoma;">Sunday, March 22</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Tahoma;">Food for thought…..Since the tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985, only 12 times out of 92 possible has a 1 seed not advanced to the Sweet 16. Count the two that have made it thus far, and 82 of the 94 teams on the 1 line have gone to the Sweet 16. Them's pretty good odds.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Tahoma;">In case you were wondering, here are the last times a 1 seed did not make the Sweet 16. Since a 1 has never lost to a 16, all of these were in round two, and all the winners were 8/9 seeds.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Tahoma;"><span style=""> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Tahoma;">2004</span>
<span style="font-family: Tahoma;">Kentucky</span> <span style="font-family: Tahoma;">lost to UAB
Stanford lost to Alabama</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Tahoma;">2002</span>
<span style="font-family: Tahoma;">Cincinnati</span> <span style="font-family: Tahoma;">lost to UCLA</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Tahoma;">2000</span>
<span style="font-family: Tahoma;">Arizona</span> <span style="font-family: Tahoma;">lost to Wisconsin
Stanford lost to North Carolina</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Tahoma;">1998</span>
<span style="font-family: Tahoma;">Kansas</span> <span style="font-family: Tahoma;">lost to Rhode Island</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Tahoma;">1996
Purdue lost to Georgia</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Tahoma;">1994</span>
<span style="font-family: Tahoma;">North Carolina</span> <span style="font-family: Tahoma;">lost to Boston College</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Tahoma;">1992</span>
<span style="font-family: Tahoma;">Kansas</span> <span style="font-family: Tahoma;">lost to UTEP</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Tahoma;">1990</span>
<span style="font-family: Tahoma;">Oklahoma</span> <span style="font-family: Tahoma;">lost to North Carolina</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Tahoma;">1986</span>
<span style="font-family: Tahoma;">St. John's</span> <span style="font-family: Tahoma;">lost to Auburn</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Tahoma;">1985</span>
<span style="font-family: Tahoma;">Michigan</span> <span style="font-family: Tahoma;">lost to Villanova</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Tahoma;">Does this list tell us anything? Not really, but I won't let that stop me.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Tahoma;">Nine of the 12 times this happened, a major conference team did the trick (exceptions being UAB, Rhode Island, and UTEP). Three of the times this happened, an SEC team pulled the upset. North Carolina did it twice.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Tahoma;"></span><span style="font-family: Tahoma;">Kansas</span> <span style="font-family: Tahoma;">(in the Roy Williams years) and Stanford are the only teams to appear on this list twice.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Tahoma;">The longest streak of all the 1 seeds advancing was 1987-89 and 2005-07. This could go to four years today.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Tahoma;">OK, I am saying it. It almost happened yesterday when a major conference team (A&M) almost knocked off a 1 seed. <span style="font-weight: bold;">One of the 1 seeds will fall today to an SEC team.</span> I am very familiar with both of these SEC teams. I see one of them practically every game, and I watch the other one pretty often. I know what they are capable of, and I know they both tend to play to the level of their competition. Today, I think the stars align for one of them, and we'll see a 1 seed fall prior to the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2004.</span></p>

 

[MSUCostanza]

it's gas. Perhaps it's delusion. Perhaps it's me thinking with my heart instead of my head. But I think we're going to win today. I just have one of those feelings.

 

[jakldawg]

We have a 16% chance of pulling off the upset:

<font size="2">Matchup</font><font size="2">: #8 Seed Mississippi St. (23-10, 12-4 Southeastern) vs. #1 Memphis (34-1, 16-0 Conference USA), 4:45
Rankings: Mississippi St., #35 in Pomeroy Ratings (3rd of 12 in SEC); Memphis, #4 (1st of 12 in C-USA)
Pomeroy Prediction: Memphis, 72-62 in 71 Possessions
Upset Possibility: 16%
Prospectus: Two southern paragons of defense do battle in Arkansas for one spot in the Sweet 16. Both teams boast some impressive statistics, not the least of which is that Memphis has lost just one game all season. The Tigers' most recent win eliminated Texas Arlington, 87-63, on Friday. Mississippi St. beat Oregon 76-69 to advance, with Charles Rhodes scoring a career-high 34 points on 10-of-12 from the floor. If you enjoy seeing balls swatted away from their flight plan, this is the game for you--the Bulldogs are first in block percentage, led by their 6'9 shot hound, Jarvis Varnado, while Memphis ranks ninth, thanks to the Tag(gart) Team of 6'9 forwards Joey Dorsey and Robert Dozier and the 6'10 Shawn Taggart. Not surprisingly given their shot-blocking acumen, both teams are among the national leaders in eFG% defense, with Mississippi St. third and Memphis fourth. The Bulldogs ranking first in the country in block percentage and also two-point percentage defense is especially impressive considering that their team isn't particularly tall--just 242nd out of 341 Division I squads in Effective Height, or height in the frontcourt, which is directly correlated to defensive efficiency. Coach Rick Stansbury plays his starters--Rhodes, Varnado, Barry Stewart, Jamont Gordon, and Ben Hansbrough (Tyler's brother)--during 78 percent of the minutes, more than all but 14 other D-I teams, so that is the group responsible for the team's strong defensive play. The Bulldogs, however, are kept from being an elite defense on the level of Memphis, which ranks first in raw defensive efficiency, by the fact that they don't force turnovers and aren't as good as the Tigers are at shutting down the three-point game. Memphis is also a significantly better offensive team, thanks to excellent ball security, offensive rebounding, and two-point field goal percentage. All that makes the Tigers the favorite to advance to their third straight Sweet 16, and prevent the Bulldogs from getting past the second round for the first time since 1996. Which of these states has the best BBQ, however? The Pomeroy Ratings are at a loss.</font>

I'm not able to tell if Charles' dream was factored into this or not.