Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 7, 1993 TAG: 9302070078
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B14 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: BILL BRILL
DATELINE: DURHAM, N.C. LENGTH: Medium
PLANTING THE SEEDS FOR NCAA TOURNAMENT
All that shuffling around to become No. 1 has raised some legitimate questions about the forthcoming NCAA men's basketball tournament.The pairings will be released at 6:30 p.m. on March 14, or approximately 90 minutes after the ACC championship game has concluded.
This year, no fewer than five schools - Michigan, Duke, Kentucky, Kansas and Indiana - have been No. 1, and had North Carolina beaten Wake Forest a week ago, there likely would have been six.
No matter. Who is No. 1 is irrelevant because of the 64-team tournament, and, other than last year when Duke went wire-to-wire, it hasn't helped teams win in the past decade.
However, how the seedings come out with the nine-man committee, chaired by Duke athletic director Tom Butters, will be interesting to see.
There is little question the two most powerful leagues in the nation are the ACC and Big Ten, in no particular order.
Computer whiz Jeff Sagarin has the Big Eight in first place in USA Today, but he is as off base with that as he was in determining that Indiana was No. 1 last season.
The Big Eight has one really good team - Kansas. Period.
However, that's part of what makes all this so intriguing.
Three of the top teams - Kansas, Kentucky and Arizona - play in leagues in which they virtually dominate. They will not lose many more games in the regular season.
Saturday's loss notwithstanding, the same is true of Cincinnati, which last year was a dark-horse entry in the Final Four but looms as a top seed this time.
Meanwhile, teams in the ACC batter each other around from game to game, and although Indiana is the clear leader in the Big Ten, it certainly is not without competition.
Now you get to the crux of the committee's problem. If, at the end of the year, there are four teams with no more than two defeats, are they the No. 1 seeds? And what if they aren't from the Big Ten? We know they won't be from the ACC (nobody has fewer than three losses).
This is important only because of the other problems that face the committee. The rules, often misunderstood, are simple:
Conference teams can't meet until the regional finals. Repeats of regular-season matchups are avoided in the early rounds. And no team can play at home.
In Seton Hall's case, that means it will have to leave the East. Wake Forest, Vanderbilt, Utah and Arizona all play host to first- and second-round games. All figure to be highly seeded, which complicates the process.
North Carolina could be involved in what surely would be a controversy if the Tar Heels were placed in the Southeast.
Should Carolina reach the Sweet 16 it would be playing at Charlotte. The Heels already have played twice at the Charlotte Coliseum, where the ACC Tournament will be held. If they reach the final, that would be five games.
The rule on home court is no more than three games, but a conference event counts only as one. So the Tar Heels could have their five games in Charlotte, not to mention the crowd, and still be legal.
The ACC winner figures to remain in the East and play in Winston-Salem, unless, of course, it is Wake Forest.
The Southeast champion should be in the Southeast and play at Nashville, Tenn., unless, of course, it is Vanderbilt.
Kansas could remain in the Midwest again and make the short trip to St. Louis. Figure on a Big Ten team in the West.
Why is this so important? To help you fill out that bracket, of course.