It's just been easier to get the 1 seed in the West over any other region in the past decade or so.twocoach wrote: ↑Fri Jan 20, 2023 12:54 pmI'd be curious to see if there is anything to this. Do they tend to put weaker 2-8 seeds in the West, making it easier for a #1 seed to advance?CrimsonNBlue wrote: ↑Fri Jan 20, 2023 11:41 am1 seeds in the west are fun.RainbowsandUnicorns wrote: ↑Fri Jan 20, 2023 11:15 am Apparently their lack of conference challenges doesn't really matter come NCAA Tournament time.
If I am not mistaken, I believe they may have won more NCAA Tournament games (collectively) in the past 7 or 8 tournaments than KU has. Am I right or wrong? I honestly don't know.
Kansas was a #3 seed in the West in 2021 and got boat raced by USC 85-51. Gonzaga was the #1 seed in the West and beat that same USC team 85-66 to advance to the Final Four. The #2, #3 and #4 seeds in the West that year all failed to even make it out of the 2nd round.
There is also something to Gonzaga blowing out teams at a high efficiency level which increases their advanced metrics. Pomeroy has alluded to his model rating Gonzaga higher than they've performed in the tournaments over the last decade-ish. So they get an easy path to a 1 seed in the west, and then the advanced metrics have them as a high 1 seed, meaning they get a low 2 seed based on S-Curve.
I firmly believe if Gonzaga was in a P5 conference, a lot of those 1 seeds are 2's, 3's, 4's and they'd have years, like this one, where they'd be more of a 5 or 6. No way do they finish 2nd to KU in total tourney wins in that scenario where they're properly seeded. The lack of Final Fours kind of supports that.