RebKell's Junkie Boards

[beknighted]

1. This year the Elite 8 features the 8 top teams in collegerpi.com's RPI ranking. Here are the matchups:

#1 Tennessee v. #7 Texas A&M
#2 UConn v. #4 Rutgers
#3 North Carolina v. #8 LSU
#5 Maryland v. #6 Stanford

2. The Elite 8 also has all of the top 8 teams in the AP poll. Here's how those matchups break down:

#1 UConn v. #7 Rutgers
#2 North Carolina v. #6 LSU
#3 Tennessee v. #8 Texas A&M
#4 Maryland v. #5 Stanford

3. The coaches' poll stopped one week before the AP poll, so it didn't account for A&M's run through the Big XII tournament, and maybe not the results of the Pac-10 tournament. Still, it has 7 of the Elite 8 teams in the top 8. Here are the matchups:

#1 UConn v. #7 Rutgers
#2 North Carolina v. #5 LSU
#3 Tennessee v. #12 Texas A&M
#4 Maryland v. #6 Stanford

4. Just for comparison, here are the matchups in last year's Elite 8 (seeds in front, RPI, AP and USA Today polls in parens):

#1 Tennessee (RPI 1, AP 3, USA 4) v. #7 Mississippi (40, UR, UR)
#3 Arizona State (16, 10, 8)v. #4 Rutgers (12, 15, 19)
#1 North Carolina (6, 2, 3) v. #2 Purdue (4, 11, 12)
#1 UConn (3, 4, 2)v. #3 LSU (14, 12, 10)

That's 4 of the top 8 in RPI, 3 of the top 8 in the AP poll and 4 of the top 8 in the USA Today poll. Mississippi wasn't even receiving votes in the USA Today poll.

5. All but one member of this year's Elite 8 has played at least three games against other members of the Elite 8. Here's the list:

6 games: Rutgers 3-3 (UConn twice, LSU, Tennessee, Maryland and Stanford)
5 games: LSU 1-4 (Tennessee twice, Rutgers, Maryland, UConn), Tennessee 3-2 (LSU twice, Rutgers, Stanford, North Carolina), UConn 4-1 (Rutgers twice, LSU, North Carolina, Stanford)
3 games: Maryland 1-2 (LSU, Rutgers, North Carolina), North Carolina 1-2(Tennessee, UConn, Maryland), Stanford 2-1 (Rutgers, UConn, Tennessee)
0 games: Texas A&M

6. Three of the four games are being played in a state where the lower seed's conference plays and the higher seed's conference does not. In the fourth game, neither team's conference plays in that state.

Edited to fix my silly mistakes in the who-played-who list (and thanks to the RU folks who noticed them).

[LadyDevilFan]

bek, I knew you wrote this post before I looked at your name. I mean this is in the nicest, most respectful way possible, but do you have a job? You always have the most creative and interesting posts, and some of them are so in-depth -- I can't figure out when you have the time to research and write them all!

More on topic...I like your fun facts -- particularly #5. I wouldn't know half as many random facts about wcbb as I do if it weren't for your posts.

[beknighted]