Dom Starsia's Top Five Seeds
Virginia Coach Dom Starsia has served on the NCAA tournament selection committee (though not this year). He was asked yesterday, following his team's 11-9 loss to Duke in the ACC tournament title game, which teams he thinks will be the top five seeds for the tourney. His answer:
1. Duke
2. Syracuse
3. Virginia
4. UNC
5. Johns Hopkins
N.B. He thinks the Hopkins-UNC pick will be close enough that head-to-head will come into play.
What do the readers think? UNC and Hopkins are both likely to finish in the 8-5 range record-wise. Are they seeded too high? Does the committee put too much faith in RPI and Strength of Schedule and not enough on common sense?
By Christian Swezey |
April 28, 2008; 11:06 AM ET
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Posted by: Anonymous | April 28, 2008 1:20 PM
How the heck does UNC get that high a seed when they lost to Duke twice by a combined 21 goals, lost AT HOME to Maryland, and lost to Ohio State?
Like the previous commenter says, they're 3-5 over their last 8 games. Are they getting the halo effect for a 5-goal win over a barely-over-.500 Hopkins team?
Posted by: Navy86 | April 28, 2008 2:50 PM
I agree 100 percent with the first two comments. How UNC can go from a No. 12 ranking to a No. 4 seed--and how Gtown is looking at going the opposite direction--makes no sense to me.
The numbers the NCAA committee uses, in particular strength of schedule and RPI, favor UNC very much over Gtown. So frankly, I think Dom has the seeds right.
One DI coach told us that he fears the reason the committee is so insistent on the numbers rather than common sense is that they lack the backbone to use common sense and then have to defend common sense. By blaming the numbers they can walk way from any controversy, sort of like Bill Murray walking away from the wild fire at the end of "Caddyshack."
Not saying I agree or disagree, just throwing it out there...
Posted by: Christian | April 28, 2008 4:59 PM
Hopkins grad here... I'm torn. I mean, I don't like when too much credit is given to history and tradition of a program.
That said, I also saw a lot of people commenting that if Hopkins softened its schedule, it'd be a shame (some put it in more harsh terms, questioning fortitude.)
So, Hopkins goes 8-5 and you have people taking shots at a "barely over .500" record. Well, fine, if I'm Petro/Hopkins I just find 2 or 3 softies and that 8-5 is going to be 10-3. Does that make them a better/worse team?
Posted by: Jerry | April 29, 2008 7:32 PM
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What about our hometown Hoyas? I think an argument could be made for Georgetown deserving a seed more than UNC. UNC has some big wins, but I believe has 5 losses in its last 8 games.