I'm pretty excited for the Green Bay @ Illinois State game. wait, what's that you say? Nobody gives a **** about the NIT? well of course but here's quick wheat notes
best game on paper
7 VCU vs 10 Ohio State. Ohio State's resume is a 9 seed but advanced metrics would've put that team as a 7. VCU would've been a bit higher but their best player went down with a career ending injury a bit ago but they still won the A10 tourn. Arizona has very arguably a tougher game to get in the S16 than to the E8. VCU also has a style you really don't want to play with one day to prepare.
best true seed # for me
12 Stephen F Austin vs 5 Utah In reality this is a 9 seed vs a 3. I can only presume Georgetown is seeded ahead of Utah because they didn't know what a basketball was until they got to college and even that's only because they accidentally overheard some people talking about it while walking across campus.
upset that really needs to happen
13 Eastern Washington vs 4 Georgetown Game is in Portland so EWU should have more fans there. EWU is good at dropping the 3's, Georgetown traditionally likes to not keep up with that. EWU is a 14 imo though; but Gtown is basically a 6, was the most surprising seed by far of the top 4 seeds.
Highest team I like better than their seed not mentioned elsewhere
Wyoming, their only bad stuff on the resume their best player was sick for, ofc they're facing a slightly underseeded Northern Iowa team instead of say another 5 seed they'd have clowned but that's the tournament.
Everyone sets up who's in and out based on teams actual performance but forget that $ wins, $ always wins in the NCAA. lol Indiana/UCLA on the bubble or shouldn't be in at all talk over say Dayton or Colorado State or Temple. YOU DON'T KNOW THEM VERY WELL DO YOU?
Committee actually did a great job of picking teams, only Indiana was a stretch. (UCLA certainly should've been in the playin tho with Indiana) Seeding was horrendous and their obvious conflict of interest showed up there. Too many strong mids got underseeded non power teams as usual. only buffalo from the wyoming/SFA/buffalo power mids got a power 5 opponent in west virginia. (utah doesn't count in their minds you know)
Wildest upset possibility
while North Florida is a 14 or 15 that inexplicably are in a playin, they aren't beating duke so let's go with Belmont's all offense, no defense team vs Virginia's all defense no offense team. Kansas essential home game will probably be enough for them in round 1 (they used to try a fair tournament instead of giving teams basically home games to try to advance the better name teams)
Anyone could advance region
The baylor/xavier/byu/georgia state region every one of those teams has a good chance, byu/georgia state underseeded by a bit, baylor/xavier overseeded by a bit.
Roy Williams is gonna do a heck of a job trying to blow that pod, pathetic for a 4 seed. He's so bad in game that's he's a very overrated coach among the casuals.
The 9's are terrible as a group, all of them should've been seeded lower.
They really need to get rid of 2 TO's because the end of the games are rough but things they'll never do is give up $. Why pay the athletes when we're making a billion dollars. (seriously ad revenue is a billion for this tournament, and it all mostly goes to old white men exploiting mostly african american... oh fuck this shit is still happening in 2015)
for the play in games Boise vs Dayton should be a good one even at dayton. BYU should handle Miss. North Florida should handle Morris, and Hampton is the worst team in the field by far, well one good playin/four ain't so bad.
ah the time of year where texas is beloved by metrics but how many times are you going to lose to a team you're better than before you realize how bad the coach is?
Weekend highlights
5th seeded wichita state playing 3rd seeded Kansas in omaha is the headliner of the second game if they both win. (shockers are essentially in a 5/12, Kansas in a 3/14) Kansas has been ducking them because they think they'll lose and don't want to get exposed. (spoiler alert, they're right) Then again they've got a 13 seed in the opening round too (btw, between CSU getting "snubbed" and the very possible take down of Kansas and Notre Dame, the glass of wiff's tears will be glorious!)
the vcu/osu winner arizona another good one
only 4/5 that might actually happen that's good is Lville UNI. 3/6's are mostly rough for me and the 8's/9's are mainly worse than 10's and 11's.
most likely chalk, wisconsin/arizona/north carolina region overall. Kentucky should steamroll, committee avoided putting anyone that good over there intentionally for ratings till at least the E8. (tho Buffalo did lead Kentucky for a half)
most chaos chances; I think it's the east. Nova/Virginia/Oklahoma=none of these teams I have confidence in getting to where you'd initially expect for various reasons (nova self implosion, UVA's lack of offense, OU's baffling losses to poor competition). Lville/UNI are much better coached I think than all of those.
