Something to Ponder Whilst on the Poo-er

Building on the ‘Something to Ponder Whilst on the Poo-er’ series, I proudly present CubicleGM’s first non-baseball themed discussion. While your moderator’s, Maurice, Carl, and Vince, have a special love for baseball, we appreciate and follow all sports, and will certainly cover most of them here, in due time. Today’s thought: Big Media (namely, ESPN) given a ton of air time to Bubble Teams, the last four in, the last four out, etc. Does it really matter? Do these teams actually make an impact on the tournament, and more importantly on our brackets?

I took a look at these teams (at-large selections, seeded 11th and higher) over the last 5 tournaments.  There have been 21 such teams over the last 5 tourneys.  6 have one at least one game – 28.5%, or a little less than 1 in 3.  See full chart at bottom for team’s, year’s and wins.

Of those 6 however, 2 ended their runs in the sweet 16 (Villanova – 2008, Bradley – 2006), and everyone’s sweet heart George Mason made it all the way to the Final Four in 2006.

This year it seems the conversation has centered around whether those last few spots should have been given to Mid Major bubble teams, rather than Power Conference squads, such as Arizona.  Of the 21 teams,  9 have come from Power Conferences (Big 12, Big 12, ACC, Big East, PAC 10, SEC), while 12 have come from the smaller conferences – pretty even.  The Power Conferences account for 3 of the 6 teams to move on, as do the non-Powers, though Bradley and George Mason above account for most of the success.

Excluding the once-in-25 -years oddity that is George Mason, these teams are pretty unconsequential.  They may sneak into the sweet 16 every few years, but are more of a tool for ESPN to fill airtime and create controversy than meaningfully impact the tourney.

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