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St. Cloud State University
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There's no logic in bracketology
Published:
Monday, March 29, 2004
Neil Hayes
Knight Ridder Newspaper
WALNUT CREEK, Calif. - In defense of Stanford we offer you Keith Smart. You remember Smart, the Indiana guard who hit the game-winning shot to lift the Hoosiers over Syracuse in the 1987 national championship game. He was one of four sports figures who helped us fill out our NCAA Tournament bracket last week.
He was confident about his picks then. We're guessing that he's more humble now. At least Smart, now a Warriors assistant coach, can take solace in knowing that former Cal guard Joe Shipp and former Stanford swingman Casey Jacobsen didn't fare much better.
A's manager Ken Macha predicted he would finish last. Given the unpredictable nature of the tournament, it's only logical that he would be the runaway leader.
Filling out a bracket and entering an office pool has become an American tradition that in recent years has given way to a second tradition: The ceremonial shredding of the bracket sheet after the second round.
No matter how much you think you know, when it comes to the NCAA Tournament, you don't know, at least not anymore. Filling out a bracket is like playing the lottery. Knowledge doesn't always increase the odds of winning.
Alabama ended Stanford's title dreams in the second round. But knowing what we know about college basketball today, how big of an upset was it?
"Parity, no question, is coming," Alabama-Birmingham coach Mike Anderson said after his team stunned top-seeded Kentucky. "Actually, it's already here."
The average margin of victory during the first two rounds fell to 10.2 points, marking the fourth straight year that number has declined. Seven lower seeds advanced in the second round. For the second time since the tournament expanded in 1985, two top seeds and two No. 2 seeds fell.
That brings us back to Stanford (you were probably wondering what was taking so long). The Cardinal fell in the second round for the fifth time in six years. Twice during that span they were a No. 1 seed.
It was a bitter defeat, especially for a team that lost only one regular-season game and was the No. 1 team in the nation heading into the tournament. But it was not a stunning upset because stunning upsets are a rarity in college basketball these days.
It was not a program defining loss as some have suggested. You can't compare upsets from the past with upsets today. The game has changed.
The gap between the best team and the 65th best team is narrower than ever. Kwame Brown, Tyson Chandler and Eddie Curry would be college juniors a decade ago. Amare Stoudamire and Carmelo Anthony would be sophomores. LeBron James would be a freshman. Instead of playing in the NBA, they would be playing for elite programs and those programs would be less prone to upset.
"The college game, the whole landscape of it, has changed more than we ever thought it could possibly change," Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim told reporters. "The big schools always survived by getting the great (prep) players. That's how they beat those other guys. But they're not getting the great player so there's not as much separation."
As many as 12 high school players are expected to enter the upcoming NBA draft, which means there will be 12 fewer great players for college coaches to choose from. Strangely, college basketball's loss is the NCAA Tournament's gain. What the tournament lacks in star power it makes up for with unpredictability.
For those reasons tournament victories are more difficult to get than ever, even for elite programs - and, yes, Stanford certainly qualifies, even after blowing a 13-point lead with eight minutes left against Alabama.
If anything, the loss confirms Stanford's status as an elite team. This is a program that has gone to the Final Four and the Sweet 16 in recent years. It has experienced more than its fair share of crashing and burning in the second round, no question, but it's not the only highly regarded program forced to endure a series of tournament disappointments.
Two of the four sports figures who helped fill out our brackets picked the Cardinals to win it all. But you can't define a team by how it fares in the tournament any more. It happens all the time, but it shouldn't. Parity has turned the tourney into an event that has become impossible to predict.
If you don't believe it take a look at your own bracket sheet or the bracket sheets of Smart, Shipp or Jacobsen. They all know college basketball, and they all participated in the NCAA Tournament.
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