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Message: [QUOTE="SWC75, post: 202996, member: 289"] Here is a compilation of the numbers. I decided there should be one #1 team each year. When there was a dispute I went with the writer’s polls simply because it started earlier and has a little more prestige, (since coaches often blow off the rankings for a staffer to do.) The other teams are all #2’s Excluded are the 1953 Kentucky team and the 1973 North Carolina State team, who didn’t play in the tournament due to a dispute with the NCAA and probation, respectively. #1 teams have won the national championship 19 times. They’ve lost in the title game 11 times. They’ve lost in the semi-finals 7 times. They’ve lost in the Elite 8 nine times, the Sweet 16 ten times and the Round of 32 five times. No #1 or #2 ranked team has ever lost in the round of 64. They’ve made the Final four 49% of the time and the final game 31% of the time. #2 teams have won the national championship 17 times. They’ve lost in the title game 4 times. They’ve lost in the semi-finals 15 times. They’ve lost in the Elite 8 fourteen times, the Sweet 16 twelve times and the Round of 32 six times. They’ve made the Final Four 31% of the time and the Final game 25% of the time. #1 teams do a better job of getting to the Final Four but #2 teams win the whole thing a higher percentage of the time. But how many times have the #1 and #2 teams actually faced each other? Unsurprisingly they’ve never met until the Final Four. They’ve met in the national semi-finals 9 times: 1960:n#2/#1 California beat #1/#2 Cincinnati 77-69 1966: #1 Kentucky beat #2 Duke 83-79 1968: #2 UCLA beat #1 Houston 101-69 1974: #1 North Carolina State beat #2 UCLA 80-77 in overtime. 1983: #1 Houston beat #2 Louisville 94-81 1986: #1 Duke beat #2 Kansas 71-67 1987: #3/#2 Indiana beat #1 UNLV 97-93 1996: #2 Kentucky beat #1 Massachusetts 81-74 1999: #1 Duke beat #2 Michigan State 68-62 They’ve met in the Finals six times: 1949: #1 Kentucky beat #2 Oklahoma A&M (State) 46-36 1956: #1 North Carolina beat #2 Kansas 54-53 in three overtimes 1961: #2 Cincinnati beat #1 Ohio State 70-65 in overtime 1962: #2 Cincinnati beat #1 Ohio State 71-59 1965: #2 UCLA beat #1 Michigan 91-80 2005: #2 North Carolina beat #1 Illinois 75-70 What does it all mean? The thing that jumps out at me is that the top two teams have met for the national championship only once in 46 years. Part of the reason is that the seeding committee is not the same group of people that do the rankings. They often see things differently, which is why the top two teams have met in the semi-finals 9 times, 8 of them in those 46 years. The other big reason is that the tournament has grown and more game shave to be won to reach the Final Four and the Finals. To my mind, there’s too many teams. The tournament should be about the best teams in the country playing each other to determine who the best of the best is. But now it’s amore all-inclusive event that brings the nation together because every place seems to have a school close to them in it. There’s a lot of Cinderella and David vs. Goliath Stories but I actually think they detract from the real purpose of the tournament. I note that Syracuse is currently #1 in RPI, Michigan State #2, Duke #3 and Kentucky #4, so it’s possible we could be in the same half of the bracket as the Wildcats. Based on the historical record we’ve got a much better chance of meeting Kentucky in the national semi-finals than the national finals. Oh, and the #1’s are 7-8 vs. the #2’s. 　　　　 [/QUOTE]

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