Ok fellow blog-a-tiers, here is are some March Madness numbers to chew on....taken from "by the numbers" by Allen St. John, WSJ 20050304...17 teams have entered the Dance with no losses and only seven closed the deal (sidebar: Wooden and his Bruins cornered the market here, so to speak, by taking 4 of 7 slots in this category)
since 1982, 10 teams have come to the Dance with one loss and none made it all the way (sidebar: only Duke in 1999 got to the Final Four)
how about #1-ranked teams entering the Dance? Only once in the last nine years, Duke once again in 2001, has that team closed the deal
finally the latest indicator to enter statistical geekdom is RPI ranking...Kansas comes in first in that category and Illinois comes in a distant 91st...so put that pen down and pick up your #2 pencil when filling in your brackets!!
BTW...fear the Rajun Cajuns !!
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I'll will take this under advisement as I complete my brackets next week.
I haven't tracked down the article you referenced, but I can think of a number reasons why this year might be different. . . .
1) high school ballers defecting to the NBA has depleted the ranks of "difference-makers" The talent pool in college basketball has been watered down so much that there's more parity
2) A related trend . . . one-and-doners (and two-fers and three-fers, for that matter) looking to get paid -- think Carmelo Anthony and Luol Deng, Josh Childress, Devin Harris, Ben Gordon, Emeka Okafor -- has further diluted once great powers. If the latter two had stayed around, we'd be talking about a UCONN repeat as a fait-accompli. . .
3) Then there are those that tested the waters, but thought better of it and came back to improve their stock. . . More returned last year than the year before. . .
All of this may sound like a case for Illinois, but it's really not. It's more of an explanation of why the Illini have managed only one loss, not a guarantee that they'll go all the way. Teams with a core of upperclassment who have played two or three years together -- well, that also applies to Syracuse, UNC, Gonzaga, Oklahoma State, Michigan State and Louisville. . .
Just more food for thought
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