Wofford and other NCAA notes
When South Carolina lost at Wofford in December, there was a lot of kvetching around these parts: “You can’t lose to Wofford!” … “How sad is it to lose to Wofford?” … “If you can’t beat Wofford, you might as well give up!”
Well, the Terriers are now a No. 13 seed in the NCAA tournament.
The small private school from Spartanburg also enters the dance with an RPI rank of 69. That’s better than five other teams South Carolina lost to this season: Miami (99), Alabama twice (102), Georgia (106), Boston College (125) and Arkansas (159).
And, in case you need to be reminded, that Wofford game was on the road for the Gamecocks. (Although they had about half the home crowd.) USC lost to Alabama at home, and to Miami in what was essentially a home game, in Charleston.
Wofford, by the way, returns the trip to South Carolina next season.
A few other South Carolina and SEC notes in reaction to the announcement of the brackets:
- Last year USC won 21 games, but none against a team that made the 65-team field. This year they only had 15 wins, but beat four NCAA teams (Kentucky, Vanderbilt, Richmond and Florida). And those teams had seeds of No. 1, No. 4, No. 7 and No. 10.
- I’m not crying for Mississippi State. I think you could make the argument for the Bulldogs over Utah State or UTEP (I always hate when mid-majors get more credit for their nonconference wins than power-conference teams.) But if you measure up MSU against Florida, I think the Gators have more:
Florida beat Michigan State, Florida State, Tennessee, as well as N.C. State and Mississippi. Its worst losses were to South Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina.
Mississippi State’s best regular-season wins were over Old Dominion, Mississippi twice and Houston. It lost to Rider, Western Kentucky, Alabama, Arkansas and Auburn.
Mississippi State did finish stronger, at least in the SEC tournament – but how you finish is just one factor. And it did beat Florida in the SEC tournament, but that just cancels out Florida’s regular-season win.
- All that said, I’m surprised at Florida being seeded that high. Then again, look at the teams seeded 11 and 12 (Washington, San Diego State, Old Dominion, Utah State, etc.). Given that, is it really that much of a stretch?
- Tennessee at No. 6 seems kind of low, considering its RPI and it knocked off the No. 1 seeded team in the entire tournament.
3 Comments to “Wofford and other NCAA notes”
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State newspaper sports writer Seth Emerson blogs on University of South Carolina basketball and baseball.
Problem with leaving MissSt out, to me, was that they did schedule some quality opponents non-conference. They beat UCLA (perennial Pac10 power), Old Dominion (champ), DePaul (Big East – generally mid-pack) and Houston (CUSA Tourney champ). They lost to Western KY (quality mid-major) and Richmond (in S.Padre Island Tourney – mid major in NCAAs).
The biggest factor, in my opinion, was the SEC West was weak rankings-wise. LSU, Auburn, Arkansas and Alabama all were relatively weak, but MissSt HAD to play them twice.
To me, MissSt did what they should’ve done – plenty enough to get in.
That is a good point you made, Seth. Why does a small conference Directional U. get credit for its one or two wins against power conference teams when a team in the SEC or Big 12 has to play 16 consecutive games against those same teams? If Directional U. had played 16 games against power teams, would it have gone 9-7? Doubtful…
If UK wouldn’t have gotten lucky in the last.001 seconds of the game, MS would have been in, not Florida.