If this March Madness mimics that of 2008, NCAA basketball committee chairman Jeff Hathaway is liable to, well, fall out of his chair.
Four years ago, each of the regional No. 1 seeds — eventual champion Kansas, Memphis, North Carolina and UCLA — reached the Final Four. That’s the only time all four top seeds got through their respective region since the selection committee began seeding teams in 1979.
Hathaway is a former athletic director at Connecticut and Colorado State, and now serves as a consultant to the Big East. His first year on the selection committee was 2008 when the No. 1 seeds all held serve.
Don’t expect a repeat in 2012, he said.
“I think (2008) really is such a different scenario than what we see today,” Hathaway said during a teleconference last week.
Kentucky and Syracuse appear to be locks for the overall top two seeds when the 68-team NCAA Tournament bracket is unveiled this afternoon (4 p.m., KCNC-4) — even with the Orange’s loss to Cincinnati at the Big East Tournament. Beyond those two, Hathaway said the pecking order isn’t nearly as clear cut.
Overall, Hathaway added, “when the committee talks about the teams, we certainly view the fact that there is a greater number of quality teams this year than we’ve ever seen before. We said that last year. We feel there’s more quality this year.
“And certainly that’s going to make the (selection and seeding) process even more challenging. There are an awful lot of quality teams.”
They are few and far between out West. The Pac-12 Conference, in particular, failed to hold up the region’s banner. Some media “bracketologists” have projected the Pac-12 to receive only one of the 37 at-large bids (likely California), in addition to the automatic spot that went to Colorado, winner of Saturday’s Pac-12 Tournament.
By comparison, the Mountain West could earn as many as four bids, with San Diego State, New Mexico, UNLV and Colorado State. And if the West Coast Conference gets three (Saint Mary’s, Gonzaga and BYU), it may well have more NCAA Tournament teams than the Pac-12 for the first time in history.
The absence of Pac-12 powerhouses is alarming to those recalling the days of the UCLA dynasty and Arizona and others contributing to the clamor of March Madness.
What makes the NCAA Tournament special, CBS college basketball announcer Jim Nantz said, is to see matchups of top teams from different regions. Nantz called it “incomprehensible” that the Pac-12 may have only a couple of representatives in the bracket.
“It’s a sport that covers the whole country,” Nantz told the Los Angeles Daily News. “Everybody follows a team that represents a region. So, when you lose the West by and large, that’s a high percentage of the country that could lose interest in the tournament. From the TV side … we don’t like that.”
Here are some things to watch as the bracket is unveiled and the road to New Orleans gains some direction:
•How many Big East teams get in? The Big East set a record with 11 last year. Projections have as many as 10 this time.
• Will the highest-rated conference, the Big Ten, fail to get any of the No. 1 seeds?
• Will the loss by Kansas to Baylor in the Big 12 Tournament semifinals drop the Jayhawks to a No. 2 seed?
• How many at-large bids for the Pac-12? One? Two? None?
• Will the recent losses of Indiana senior Verdell Jones and Michigan State freshman Branden Dawson to season-ending knee injuries affect the seeding of those teams?
Selection Sunday is here. Expect the unexpected.
Predicting the top seeds
No. 1 seeds: Kentucky, Syracuse, North Carolina, Kansas
No. 2 seeds: Ohio State, Michigan State, Missouri, Duke
No. 3 seeds: Baylor, Marquette, Louisville, Michigan
No. 4 seeds: Georgetown, Cincinnati, Temple, Wisconsin
