RebKell's Junkie Boards

[beknighted]

I was looking at the list of 1st and 2nd round sites and it's interesting. With the tilt towards the west (a very heavy tilt) and the sudden declines of Louisville and Pitt, it seems that an unusually large number of sites will be hosted by teams not in the tourney.

Here's the list:

Sites hosted by teams that are in the tournament and are likely 4 seeds or better

Maples Pavilion - Stanford
Cameron Indoor Stadium - Duke
Thompson-Boling Arena - Tennessee
Donald L. Tucker Center - Florida State
Frank Erwin Center - Texas
Cintas Center - Xavier
Lloyd Noble Center - Oklahoma
Joyce Center - Notre Dame

Sites hosted by a team that is in the tournament and are likely 5 seeds or worse

James H. Hilton Coliseum - Iowa State

Sites hosted by a team that might make the tournament

Ted Constant Convocation Center - Old Dominion

Sites hosted by teams that probably won't make the tournament

Haas Pavilion - California
Freedom Hall - Louisville
Bank of America Arena - Washington
Wells Fargo Arena -Arizona State
Williams Arena - Minnesota
Petersen Events Center - Pittsburgh

The sites hosted by teams in the tournament appears to include 2 of the 4 likely #1 seeds (Stanford and Tennessee), 4 of the 8 teams that look likely to me to get 2 and 3 seeds (Duke, Notre Dame, Oklahoma, Xavier) and 2 teams that seem likely to be 4 seeds (Florida State and Texas). That leaves half of the top-4 seeds without locations.

The most interesting questions are where to send UConn and Nebraska, obviously. UConn has a reasonably good location in Pitt, which is shockingly the only site in the northeast. It's also possible UConn could get sent to ODU, but I'd guess that's likely only if the Monarchs are not in the tournament.

Nebraska, on the other hand, is a conundrum. Without actually having done the mileage, it looks to me like the closest empty sites are Minnesota and Louisville, followed by Tempe. All of them are pretty good slogs from Nebraska. You also have to deal with Ohio State, which is close to both Louisville and Pittsburgh, with Minnesota a somewhat distant third. My guess is that Nebraska gets Minnesota and Ohio State gets Louisville, and whatever team or teams (other than Oklahoma and Texas) that emerge from the Big 12 as top-4 seeds after that go to Tempe and further west.

None of this accounts for WVU, of course. If you want anyone to show up at the games, you need to put the Mountaineers at Pitt, so maybe if ODU doesn't make the tournament, UConn goes to Norfolk, WVU goes to Pitt, Ohio State is in Louisville and Nebraska is in Minnesota.

It gets pretty murky at this point. You somehow have to fill the Cal and Washington locations. My guess is that two unlucky 4 seeds will be sent to them. Washington, actually, would be a perfect spot for Georgetown, which is used to playing in front of hundreds of spectators, about half rooting for the other team. (Plus there's the whole irony thing about a DC team playing in Washington, ha ha ha.)

Thoughts? Better ideas? I will say that this exercise has given me a bit more sympathy for the problems the committee has in setting this part of the bracket.

[njjosh]

It's likely that at least one #1, #2 or #3 seed will get screwed by first round location and have to play a second round game on a lower seed's home court. Happens pretty much every year.

[bridgehere]

beknighted posted:

Thoughts? Better ideas? I will say that this exercise has given me a bit more sympathy for the problems the committee has in setting this part of the bracket.


I had the same thought yesterday when looking at where Oklahoma might play. It's difficult when you have to consider that you want people in the seats and the teams' fans to be able to follow them. It's difficult enough if you just had to pick the 64 seeds and have them play according to their seeds.

Agree about Minnesota for Nebraska. Without looking at the map, I am pretty sure that would be a shorter trip for their in-state fans.

[FS02]

Last year there were about 3000 mostly Zag fans on hand when Gonzaga beat Xavier in Seattle. Fun atmosphere.

[gopher5]

I hope Nebraska is placed in Minneapolis. I think that is the best shot for a decent crowd here, plus it would be fun to watch them in person.

Ohio State would be ok, but it does not seem like a lot of their fans travel. It might help with Tayler Hill on the team to draw some local interest.

[mred]

[beknighted]