Gonzaga with the best seed, Villanova (6 overall), and Virginia (9) held a major football field meeting (and merely merchandise) on Saturday, when the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee revealed its future top 16 for March Madness. A preview along the lines of the College Football Playoff’s meaningless weekly ranking now reveals many of the same schools.
Just look at this list! Alabama and Ohio State, your college football title slope just over a month ago, now both in the upper half of the Sweet 16 preliminary hoops … plus old-time football programs like Michigan, Texas and Oklahoma … but it’s not just football royalty, nosiree. .. qualifying programs for the midling bowl are also here, including 2020 Liberty Bowl champion West Virginia as well as Tennessee, Iowa … and more!
The state of Ohio (4) did not need a change of rules this time (ahem) to see your way to the 1 seed row with sworn enemies Michigan (3, and happy to be now avoiding the Buckeyes until a later round given the path the football team held against them in the Jim Harbaugh era). Illinois (5) completes one of the 5 biggest trifetas for the Big Ten.
The national champion of 2021 (in that other sport), Alabama, is behind ‘Nova in the line of 2 seeds, along with the recent participants of the New Mexico Bowl, Houston. West Virginia, Tennessee and Oklahoma completing the line of 3 seeds behind defending champion Virginia. (Yes, this time I mean basketball … but it’s been a while since anyone paid attention, so don’t feel bad if your last Cavalier memory is shitting in bed as the first seed 1 to lose for a seed of 16 in UMBC, before winning the 2019 crown.)
The 4-seed line starts in early October on Saturday on the football field: Iowa, Texas Tech, Texas and Missouri.
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March Madness has a new look this year, and by new I want to say good luck in recognizing a lot of what will happen next month.
Conference tournaments? ¯ _ (ツ) _ / ¯
Tournament regions? Well, all games are in or around Indianapolis, so … not so much.
First round games? Now, on Friday and Saturday, avoiding the usual Thursday tip that made my grandmother call me in a nervous state every year because she was missing out on her programs (that means soap operas). And finally, you can be nnoticeably missing some blue-blooded basketball programs up there. They all kind of stink this year. Get used to the idea of a tournament without Duke, Kansas or North Carolina. Kentucky may not even be good enough for the NIT.
All of this results in an unpredictable tournament, and isn’t that what we all want? Okay, yeah, okay, this is what we want for at least a weekend.
Anyway, go team, rah, first and ten do it again. And get us through this post-Super Bowl stagnation from February to March quickly, please and thank you. About that, wear a mask.