ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, March 10, 1997 TAG: 9703120023
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: JACK BOGACZYK
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK
Don't be surprised that a team that finished third in the ACC regular-season race is a No.1 seed. Or that the NCAA Tournament geography is as skewed as it always is. Or that the Big Ten has a chance at going 1-5 in the first round again, as it did in 1995.
Some things never change when pairings are set for the Large Lambada. Some things do. There are no Manhattans or Santa Claras this year. The 34 at-large teams placed in the men's bracket Sunday are just that, coming from the nine largest conferences.
Of those, 33 were at least .500 in their conference regular seasons. The exception was Virginia. For the third time in eight years, the Cavaliers got an NCAA trip despite winning less than half of their games in the nation's best conference. It pays to live in a nice neighborhood.
Virginia also got in because only 12 other schools had more victories against teams ranked in the top 50 in the Ratings Percentage Index (RPI). Five of those 12 were ACC teams. Of the leading 11 in RPI top-50 victories, only Louisville (No.6, East) isn't a top four regional seed.
There shouldn't be much complaining about the selections, although the Western Athletic Conference probably was reminded of its Bowl Alliance disappointment of a few months ago. The WAC will wail, for no good reason, about the absence of Fresno State and Hawaii.
Virginia athletic director Terry Holland, who chaired the nine selectors in his last year on the NCAA Basketball Committee, said the bracket was completed by 4 p.m. In his five years with the group, it's the least amount of March madness the committee has faced.
``We were fortunate,'' Holland said of the committee holed up in a Kansas City, Mo., hotel conference room. ``There weren't many upsets.''
The Atlantic 10 got a league-record five berths, and deserved them. The Big East, which will dominate the NIT field, thought West Virginia or Syracuse deserved a bid. However, their non-conference results (Syracuse) and schedule (WVU) doomed them.
``You're going to hear a lot of talk about record vs. top 100,'' Holland said, ``or too many games against the bottom 150. Bottom feeding doesn't get it done.''
In 60 non-conference games on ACC courts this season, only Michigan won (at Duke), but the Wolverines learned that what happens in December doesn't count much if you sink in February. Among the eligible teams (Texas Tech was No.27 but withdrew because of academic questions), Michigan had the highest RPI (No.40) of any team that was snubbed.
The ACC got five of the top 20 seeds, and UVa at No.9 in Salt Lake City. No surprise there. The league has had five of the top 20 spots three times previously, all since 1985, but only in the first of those years was the combined seed total for the five as low as this time.
The Cavaliers' situation is reminiscent of Virginia Tech's NCAA trip a year ago - heading west of the Mississippi as a No.9 with a second-round date against top-seeded Kentucky as the possible reward. Virginia (18-12) must beat Iowa to get there.
Kansas goes to the Southeast and Minnesota to the Midwest because they are the tournament's top two seeds, and their first-round locations are closer geographically for them than other potential sites in other brackets. North Carolina finished third in the ACC season, but won the ACC tournament and could keep smoking on Tobacco Road.
Picking a Final Four - UNC, Kansas, Kentucky and Cincinnati are the choices here - will be easier than picking what happens before the semifinals in Indianapolis. There are a bunch of games that look like 8-9, like Tulsa-Boston U. and Princeton-Cal.
There were few upsets in filling the bracket. There could be more than a few in emptying it.
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