Today’s discussion considers whether March college basketball might have just as much madness if the seeding of teams were eliminated entirely. Might some results—such as Fairleigh Dickenson lowering the boom on Purdue or Princeton ambushing Arizona in the first round this year—have been just as compelling without the numbers in front of their names?
Fairleigh Dickenson came to the Dance as runner-up in the Northeast Conference, against the likes of Merrimack and Stonehill, while Purdue was the Big Ten champ. Those facts may have established FDU as the underdog and reinforced a pecking order in the sport, just as Ivy League Princeton was lower on the food chain than the Pac 12’s Arizona. But did the process of attaching seeds to the combatants—essentially guesswork performed by an NCAA tournament selection committee—add any suspense?
This annual hoops ruckus is based on unexpected outcomes, and it could be said that Fairleigh Dickenson (a No. 16 against a No. 1) and Princeton (a No. 15 vs. a No. 2) certainly met the challenge of reaping what the selection committee had sowed. The 2023 tournament has demonstrated, over and over, that the old power conference/mid-major gap, which figures mightily into seeding, is closing.
Florida Atlantic, tagged with a No. 9, is in the Final Four after knocking off No. 4 Tennessee and No. 3 Kansas State. More to the point, Florida Atlantic, the Conference USA champion, this season has won 35 games (against three losses), the most of any men’s team in the country.
The other Final Four participants are Connecticut (No. 4), Miami (No. 5) and San Diego State (No. 5), after the farthest any of the four No. 1 seeds progressed was the third round (both Alabama and Houston). No No. 2 or 3 seed got past the fourth round.
According to the fivethirtyeight.com site, which deals in polls and probabilities regarding everything from Joe Biden’s popularity to who might win racing’s Triple Crown, the pre-tournament likelihood of a San Diego State-Florida Atlantic semifinal was a mere 0.05 percent. The chance of a UConn-Miami semi was 0.3 percent. Fivethirtyeight—its stated mission statement is to “use data and evidence to advance public knowledge, adding certainty where we can and uncertainty where we must”—now gives UConn the best chance (43 percent) of winning the title. Hmm. Another nod to the highest seed remaining.
It’s all a big stab in the dark.
Way back in 2012, then-Georgetown coach John Thompson III declared that “you are foolish if you go into the tournament and look at the numbers (seeds) behind the name and assume that, just because of that number, one team is significantly better than the other.” These days, with the infamous “transfer portal” that makes players free agents, traditional powerhouse schools no longer call all the shots.
More and more, carrying a low seed has become something of a talent camouflage. Much easier for a Fairleigh Dickenson to pooh-pooh Purdue.
The tournament debuted in 1939 with eight teams and not until 1979, with 40 participants, did the NCAA seed teams. But even after such attempts at predictive outcomes, in the 44 years since then, one of the four No. 1 regional seeds has won the title just 24 times. That’s 176 No. 1 seeds over that span, with a championship success rate of just over 7 percent.
A modest proposal: Skip the seeding. Put the 68 tournament teams in a hat and execute a blind draw to fill the brackets. Stop reinforcing the fallacy of a never-changing hoops hierarchy. Encourage all comers to consider themselves an equal part of this basketball propulsion lab. Dare all the teams to respect everybody, fear nobody.
True madness, no?