The Irish had to wait until the very end of the 30-minute CBS bracket reveal to finally find their destination. The Selection Committee decided to reward Florida, Butler, Purdue and West Virginia for their regular season work, placing all four of them ahead of the Irish and shipping the Irish to a #5-seed in the West Region, with the opening weekend’s games being played in Buffalo, NY. Notre Dame also drew the dreaded “first game of the tournament” slot, and kick off festivities at 12:15 EST as the day’s opener.

Continuing with the “doing them no favors” theme, the committee also paired Ivy League Champion, Princeton (23-6, KenPom rated #59) as the #12-seed opposite. While it’s true that there are no good options of mid majors to play on the #12 line, the Irish will have a dangerous, 3-pointer reliant, upset-minded foe for Thursday afternoon. Should the Irish get past Princeton, they will find the winner of #4 West Virginia vs. #13 Bucknell. The full PDF bracket is available here.

A Little Bit Under-seeded

In recent years, the committee has opened themselves up to endless amounts of second guessing and armchair analysis by releasing its full 68 team seed list, ranking the teams from top to bottom. In years past, you could generally recreate it by comparing seeds and locations, but this is obviously much simpler. I commend the committee for doing so, but will immediately join in with the armchair analysis.

The committee ranked both Virginia and Minnesota ahead of us, as #17 and #18, slotting us in at #19. The Virginia comparison is a close one, although one I think we should win. The Minnesota comparison should be no contest.

Using Ken Pomeroy’s rating system, the six games Notre Dame played against top 10 opponents (going 2-4) are replaced by 6 games against teams between 26-100 on Minnesota’s resume. In those games, Minnesota went 2-4. Even by a lesser metric (RPI), the analysis is similar.

But Not As Bad As Some Might Tell You

Ok, now that that bit of a rant is out of the way, I’ll follow it up with a bit of the reverse. I said in my previous post that I thought the Irish deserved a #4-seed and I stand by that analysis. I think we could have been rated over either/both of Florida/Purdue. But ESPN’s Joe Lunardi moved Notre Dame up to a #3-seed this morning and Jay Bilas has been saying that we got screwed out of being a #3-seed. This narrative is just simply not the case.

While we could have been rated over two of the teams on the #4 line, Butler and West Virginia are clearly steps ahead of us.

If you squint the right way, you could probably make the case that Florida St’s 4 bad losses should cost them enough that they’re near the Irish and then claim beating them 2 out of 3 means ND should get the edge. It’s also easy to argue the other side and dismiss that logic by pointing to the fact that they beat Louisville and Duke plus fellow #4/#5 seeds Florida, Minnesota and Virginia. That’s 6 wins over teams seeded #5 or better, whereas ND has 8 wins over teams that made the tournament at all!

I know everyone wants to find some level of outrage with their team landing a bit below where we would have liked (and where last week’s tourney run makes us feel like they belong), but there’s less here than many are making of it.

Team Reactions

With all the discussion of Notre Dame getting under-seeded, you know that idea has also floated into the locker room. Matt Ryan put this tweet out there, which is a little over the top, but gets the point across:


Meanwhile, Rex Pflueger went with a little more subtle nod to the disrespect the Irish are feeling:

Given the hangover we were all expecting from the hotly contested ACC Final on Saturday night, a bit of “chip on the shoulder” mentality might be a good thing for the group.

Enough with Seeds, How About Match-Ups?

The other side of the outrage over the low seed is the fact that when you look at our region, it doesn’t look particularly daunting. We have the last of the #1 seeds awaiting in the Sweet 16 if we make it that far. I think Gonzaga is actually primed for a run this year, but it’s hard to ignore their history of falling short of expectations. West Virginia is likely under-seeded as a #4, which will make reaching a Sweet 16 difficult, but teams that don’t turn the ball over and handle pressure well tend to fare well against Bob Huggins’ press defense.

Arizona as a 2-seed would be a sizable roadblock to the Final 4, especially since they’re clearly playing well, but 3-seed Florida State is obviously a team we’d love to find in an elite 8 match-up, given our history.

As mentioned above, Princeton is a formidable foe and we should be on upset alert Thursday afternoon. Alstein will have more on the Tigers later in the week, but they’re basically a poor man’s version of the Irish on offense. They move, they find open looks and they shoot. They take care of the basketball and are a threat to get hot, but no more so than we are.

The Rest of the Bracket

In the end, Mike Brey’s squad drew a manageable region. The committee didn’t pave a golden path to glory for the Irish, but they didn’t give them an impossible task either. What’s more, comparing the paths Notre Dame to the teams erroneously ahead of the Irish, you quickly realize we might have actually come out ahead.

Minnesota draws potential giant killer Middle Tennessee St. (you may remember last year taking down Michigan St.) and then matches up with Butler to reach the S16. Their reward, should they pass those tests, would be UNC and then likely Kentucky. No thanks.

Meanwhile, in the East, Virginia and Florida should match up in a battle of (if you believe KenPom’s rankings) top 10 teams. Then the winner will be rewarded with #1 overall seed Villanova. Ouch.

And while that matchup will be a battle, the best matchup of the first weekend will happen in Indianapolis on Sunday if Wichita St can advance to face Kentucky. Wichita St, a 10 seed, is currently listed as KP’s #8 (overall!) team while Kentucky clocks in at #4. This means that in addition to Virginia/Florida (#7 vs. #9) we could also find ourselves with #4 vs. #8 before heading to bed Sunday night.

Bubble

Given how much coverage it gets, I’d be remiss not to mention that Syracuse and Illinois St. were the casualties at the wire. Whether or not Rhode Island’s dismantling of VCU on Sunday afternoon was needed to punch their ticket, it certainly didn’t help Syracuse’s case. I, for one, was good with Syracuse’s exclusion. ACC bragging rights are fine, but Syracuse doesn’t bring any value to the NCAA Tournament. None.

Plus, they get a great first round NIT matchup!

More To Come

The whole basketball crew will be back Tuesday with a round-table discussion of everything Madness and as mentioned, Alstein will have an opponent preview on game-day.

It’s March and there are no easy paths left – time to get started!