Part of the fun of March Madness are the Cinderellas.
Unless you were on the selection committee for either the men or the women's tournaments. Then you stole her slippers and replaced them with power conferences.
What stands out in the men's bracket was six at-large berths went to teams with 13 losses, but they all played in one of the six main basketball conferences, which generally are considered the Big Five -- SEC, Big Ten, ACC, Big 12 and Pac-12 -- plus the Big East.
In fact, 29 of the 36 at-large bids went to schools in those six conferences.
In the women's tournament, 11 teams with at least 10 losses received at-large bids, including LSU and Arkansas with 17-13 records.
The Tigers -- who lost to No. 11 seed UALR -- are a No. 11 seed, and Arkansas is a No. 10 seed. Yes, the SEC RPI is much better than the Sun Belt's, but don't keep telling the public the RPI doesn't count as much as head-to-head competition.
Oklahoma is a No. 5 seed but lost to the Razorbacks, 71-64, and to UALR, 66-62. The Sooners were 20-11 overall and 13-5 in Big 12 play, meaning they were 7-6 against nonconference opponents. How does that make the Big 12 stronger than the Sun Belt, which received zero respect?
The Big 12 received four at-large berths in the women's tournament. All had at least 10 losses this season.
So when you start filling out that men's bracket for the office pool, which is totally legal if no money changes hands, don't count on a lot of upsets.
There will be some, but mostly by teams that were really good in their mid-level conference. Look for teams that won their conference and tournament and played at least two quality opponents in nonconference.
There aren't that many, but that's because not many Cinderellas made the dance.
...
For the past five NCAA Tournaments, the record in the matchups between No. 5 seeds and No. 12 seeds is 10-10, so that is the common place to look for an edge in your office competition.
The Arkansas Razorbacks are a No. 5 seed and play a good No. 12 seed in Wofford.
The Terriers' only edge is they were in the NCAA Tournament last season, but they gained just one game of experience after losing the opener to Michigan.
Wofford averages just 51 shots per game but shoots 45.8 percent from the floor, including 37.6 percent behind the three-point line. Almost one-third of all the Terriers' shots were threes.
The leader is Karl Cochran, who launched 256 threes this season, making 96 (37.5 percent). For comparison, Anthlon Bell shot the most three-pointers for the Razorbacks (177 attempted, 62 made).
The Terriers attempted 572 three-pointers as a team and made 215. Arkansas attempted 648 and made 227.
...
While on the subject of finding a No. 12 who can beat a No. 5, the best bet might be Stephen F. Austin over Utah.
The Lumberjacks are 29-4, and three of those losses were to NCAA Tournament teams Xavier, a No. 6 seed; Northern Iowa, a No. 5 seed; and Baylor, a No. 3 seed.
Last year, they were a No. 12 seed and knocked off No. 5 Virginia Commonwealth before losing to UCLA in the second game.
The Utes will have a distinct height advantage but have lost four of their past seven games.
If you are looking for a couple of other upsets, these are from predictionmachine.com: No. 10 Davidson over No. 7 Iowa; No. 11 Texas over No. 6 Butler (these aren't the same Bulldogs who made it to the championship game twice); and No. 13 UC-Irvine over No. 4 Louisville.
Other than that, there may not be a lot of Cinderellas looking for a dance in this March Madness. The selection committees took care of that.
Sports on 03/18/2015