What's Our Seed?

The ACC Tournament is this week.  Should be absolutely titillating.  I like (but don't love) our draw.  Georgia Tech will be win-desperate on Wednesday night, as they try to play their way into the NCAA Tournament.  We win that, and we face a rested Notre Dame team -- which we have owned -- but which also owes us a debt of revenge and poses some of the most unique matchup problems out there.  Survive to Friday, and we're facing a Florida State team with all sorts of length and Dwayne Bacon to pelt us with threes.  Best conference in the history of college basketball, OF COURSE the conference tournament is going to be tough.


Truth be told, I don't really care that much about the ACC Tournament.  It's the NCAA Tournament that matters.

Here's where the bracket experts currently have us seeded...

Lunardi -- 5-seed in the Midwest; paired with 12-seed Nevada and 4 Purdue / 13 Akron.  1-seed Kansas looms in the Sweet Sixteen.

Palm -- 5-seed in the West; paired with 12-seed UNC Wilmington (nightmare draw) and 4 Duke (huh?) / 13 Florida Gulf Coast.  1-seed Gonzaga looms in the Sweet Sixteen.  Would the Committee seed two ACC teams so closely, setting up a second round matchup?  Hell no.  Right?  Fuck you, Jerry Palm.

Shelby Mast -- 5-seed in the East; paired with 12-seed Texas-Arlington and 4 West Virginia / 13 Winthrop.  1-seed Villanova looms in the Sweet Sixteen.  I'd probably take that.

Beller -- 5-seed in the Midwest; paired with 12-seed Nevada and 4 Florida / 13 Bucknell.  1-seed Kansas looms in the Sweet Sixteen.

The Bracket Project -- 5-seed in the East; paired with 12-seed Nevada and 4 Purdue / 13 Texas-Arlington.  1-seed Villanova looms in the Sweet Sixteen.


Takeaways:

-- We're pretty unanimously a 5-seed, but closer to being a 4 than we are to being a 6.

-- The 12s and 13s all look pretty tough to me this season.  Kinda scary.  But maybe we'll beat ours while our 4 loses in an upset.  That could be cool.

-- My best guess is we end up in the Midwest (Kansas) or West (Gonzaga), not matched up with Villanova or UNC as our 1s.

-- Teams I want to see us avoid in the 1st round: Vanderbilt, Middle Tennessee, UNC Wilmington, Princeton.

-- 1st round, bring it on: USC, Illinois State, Nevada, Texas-Arlington, Vermont, Akron, ETSU.

-- Teams I want to see us avoid in the 2nd round: UCLA, Arizona, Duke, Purdue.

-- 2nd round, bring it on: Florida, Butler, West Virginia, Cincinnati, SMU.

-- At this point, I feel like we're something slightly - slightly - worse than a coin flip away from the Sweet Sixteen.  We'll need NC State and UNC Kyle Guy firing away from deep if we want to make a run to the second weekend.


My over/under on the games we have left to play this season: 4.  And I'm taking the over.

GO HOOS!