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The Chicago Tribune looks at how the NCAA tournament seeds have fared since 1985. I love the idea of a big tournament that invites a huge number of teams. It seems the most democratic, but there are some gaps in justice. For example, the #8 or #9 seed is really screwed because they always must play a #1 in the second round. Only 12 #8 or #9 teams have made it past the second round.

On the other hand, #12 is a pretty good seed. Those teams have a losing, but respectable record against the #5 seeds. A total of 14 number #12 seeds have made it past the second round.

My guess is that the seeds increase linearly while quality increases geometrically. The difference between a #12 and a #5 is probably about the same as a #1 and a #3.

If we wanted to be hard-headed, we could really make it a 12-team tournament and the results would be almost the exact same. Twenty of the 23 winners have been #1, #2 or #3 teams. Of course, that would ruin a lot of the fun.

I’ve noticed that no matter what happens, the media talks about how the first weekend was a “Cinderella Weekend.” But going by history, there’s nothing that surprising by having at least one #14 beat a #3, or having a #2 or #3 lose in the second round.

It’s fun to root for the Cinderella teams (we have a couple of local teams ranked in the double-digits), but history says that the odds are against them.

Posted by edelfenbein at March 19, 2008 7:45 PM