Tuesday, November 13, 2018

2018 NCAA TOURNAMENT BRACKET ANALYSIS: #4 SEEDS

The Committee's #4 seeds are #8 Southern California, #11 Duke, #13 Texas, and #25 Boston College.

#8 Southern California.  Met 20 "yes" standards and no "no" standards.  Based on the Committee's last 11 years' decisions, it would have been a #2 seed, so at least a #4 seed was virtually mandatory.

#11 Duke.  Met 10 "yes" standards and no "no" standards.  Based on the Committee's past decisions, it would have been a #3 seed, so a #4 seed was obvious.

#13 Texas.  Met 6 "yes" standards and no "no" standards.  Again based on the Committee's past decisions, it would have been a #3 seed, so a #4 seed was obvious.

#25 Boston College.  Met no "yes" standards and no "no" standards.  This made it a #4 seed candidate.

In addition to Boston College, there were  6 other teams that met no "yes" and no "no" standards, thus making them all #4 seed candidates:

#14 Memphis
#16 South Florida
#19 TCU
#21 Vanderbilt
#22 Penn State
#23 Kansas
#26 Arkansas

The Committee had these 6 plus Boston College to choose the fourth #4 seed from, all legitimate #4 seed candidates based on past precedent, but none with distinguishing favorable or unfavorable characteristics.  The Committee's decision to give Boston College the last #4 seed thus was not inconsistent with its past history.  Someone had to get it and, based on past precedent, it could just as well have been Boston College as any of the others.

Putting this together with the #1 through #3 seeds, and without regard for the seed positions the Committee gave them, all 16 of the seeded teams fit the Committee's historic patterns for getting "a" seed.  It's only at the level of the specific seeds some teams got that the Committee broke with its historic patterns.  In some of those cases, the Committee had to break the patterns because the teams presented it with profiles it hasn't seen before.  In other cases, the Committee broke the patterns for unknown reasons.

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