Sometimes I am guilty of being in the "Villanova Bubble" and think we did everything we should've done to deserve a 1 seed or even a 2 in the East. When I would here Jay Williams or others on ESPN we shouldn't get a 1 seed (even if we had won the BET) I would scream, "they're biased!" However, I am now of the belief, despite how many screw ups the committee made, that we were seeded exactly what we deserved. Here are the reasons:
- Who did we beat? I agree with the committee that "who you beat" is a very important criteria. So who did we beat? Xavier @ home without Sumner. That's it. Period. The rest are top 50 RPI wins, solid, but not strong enough in comparison to the other 1s and 2s. Plus, we lost soundly to OU and UVA beat us by 11. Two teams ahead of us.
- The ACC is like the old Big East. There are a lot of top teams in that league and they beat up on each other, but they benefit by getting high seeds and many bids, like the old BE. That's why they have two #1s and Cuse made it.
- I think that our recent failures in March weighed on us as well, and to me, that is fair. I think even had we beaten SH, we still would've been behind Oregon and MSU on the S Curve and been a 2 seed.
- Big East is #4 Conference RPI, but it appears to be a distant #4. Outside of Xavier, there wasn't another top 10 or even top 20 team in the league (except SH now, but they're a 6 seed!!!). So even though we went 16-2, the league after us and Xavier looked a lot like the A-10 (where would've St. Joe's finished in our league). As a league, we must prove it this week and next.
