Monday, January 05, 2009

And Then There Were 4....

BC's stunning upset of North Carolina (wow...) Sunday night and Stanford's blowout loss to Arizona State last week means only four unbeaten teams remain.

Here's a look at when their first loss might come:

Pittsburgh - 1/17 @ Louisville, 1/19 Syracuse
Wake Forest - 1/11 North Carolina, 1/14 @ Boston College
Clemson - 1/6 Alabama, 1/10 North Carolina State
Illinois State - 1/6 @ Bradley, 1/14 Drake

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

If Illinois State runs the table during the regular season, I wonder how high their seed could go. I can't imagine them getting a 1 seed with their poor schedule, so maybe a 2 or 3?

In any case, thank you Boston College!

Bracketology 101 said...

Great question…that scenario almost certainly won’t happen, but if Illinois State did somehow go undefeated, it would be fascinating to see where they would be seeded. The only scenario to compare it to would be the 2003-2004 St. Joe’s team – a mid-major team that went unbeaten in the regular season (the Hawks lost in the A-10 tourney to Xavier and entered the NCAA tourney with one loss). St. Joe’s was rewarded a 1 seed for its efforts, but unlike Illinois State this year, their resume was loaded with quality wins that year. The Hawks had 5 RPI Top 50 wins and 2 RPI Top 25 wins and finished the season at No. 3 in the RPI. Illinois State, meanwhile, could go through its regular season schedule and not beat a tournament team (maybe Creighton, but that’s very iffy right now). Their best win will likely come in the BracketBuster game on Feb 21 (vs. Xavier? Butler?) , but they will be at the mercy of the schedule makers in terms of who they play. Even if they go unbeaten, anything better than a 3 seed would be a stretch. Their resume won’t warrant anything more. A 1 seed is out of the question, and a 2 would be as well. A 3 (or more likely a 4) would seem appropriate.

Anonymous said...

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