Bob Bowlsby said Louisville got what it deserved

[Biggus Piggus]

A No.4 seed that is.  And he acted as though he was smart in saying everybody seeded ahead of the Cardinals was clearly more deserving.  Like the choice was between making them a 4 or a 3.

Now Louisville is in the final four having defeated No.7 West Virginia (which took out apparently overseeded No.2 Wake Forest), No.1 Washington (which clearly was not as talented as the Ville), No.5 Georgia Tech (way overseeded), and No. 13 Louisiana-Lafayette (which gave the Cards one of their tougher games).

I don't know, I suppose the committee had a stroke of genius giving WVa as high as a 7 seed.  They were 21-10, .500 in conference.

Louisville entered the tourney 29-4, 14-2 in CUSA, winners of regular season and league tourney titles, ranked in the top 5 in the polls, winners over only a handful of name teams thus the committee disrespect.  The committee needs to watch some actual basketball now and then.  A little first-person expertise would be nice, doncha think?  Anybody who saw Louisville play this season should have known a 4 seed for them was crazy.

Seeded better than Louisville was:

3 seeds Kansas (23-6), Oklahoma (23-7), Arizona (26-6) and Gonzaga (25-4).

2 seeds Wake Forest (26-5), Connecticut (22-7), Kentucky (25-5) and Oklahoma State (24-6).

1 seeds Illinois (32-1), North Carolina (27-4), Duke (25-5) and Washington (27-5).

Bowlsby acted as though it should be impossible to seed Louisville ahead of the regular-season OR league tourney champs of the Big 12.  It didn't seem to matter that UConn played nobody decent on the nonconference schedule prior to January, and the two name teams it played thereafter (OU and the Heels) both beat them.  Committee got stuck in a feedback loop: Syracuse was the automatic bid, UConn beat them two of three, so Cuse gets a 4 and UConn a 2?  It's nuts.

KU may have been Big 12 champ, but it was clearly reeling down the stretch, and Langford was hurt late.  Gonzaga was fine, is a nice program that does things right, and beat Washington, Georgia Tech and Okie State.  They also had 12 wins against teams below 150 in RPI.  A 22-11 Texas Tech team showed how ordinary Gonzaga's talent is, but they did about all a mid-major could do to earn a good seed (excluding their big loss to Illinois).

Gonzaga played eight top 50 games, five 51-100, and 18 below 100.  That made their SOS rank 35th.  The message there is:  If you get three top 10 teams on your nonconference schedule, your SOS is going to be good no matter who else you play.

Washington's resume:

Back in November, won the Great Alaska Shootout over Utah, OU and Alabama.  Nice.  Lost at Gonzaga.  Beat NC State at home (being the only good team on the Wolfpack's nonconference sked).  Finished second in the Pac 10, won the conference tourney.  Won two of three over Arizona.  They seemed clearly deserving of being in the top eight teams in the land.  Top four?  They had losses to UCLA, Oregon State and Stanford, all NIT caliber at best if you ask me.  Then again, Duke was swept by Maryland.  North Carolina opened with a loss to Santa Clara.

I disagree with the committee's conclusion that it was obvious three ACC teams and three Big 12 teams deserved to be rated ahead of the team that dominated CUSA.  There ought to be a rule against putting three teams from one conference among the top eight (OR 12) seeds in the field of 65.  Finishing third should not be so rewarding.