2023 March Madness

GU is a #3 seed, and opens with Grand Canyon. If they get past them they likely face TCU. The other side of their bracket includes #2 UCLA and #10 Boise St.
SMC is a #5 seed in the same region, and opens with VCU. Higher rated teams in their half of the region are #4 UConn and #1 Kansas.

In the NIT, which is 32 teams with the top 16 seeded with the next sixteen placed based on regional match-ups, SCU is the only WCC team, facing #2 Sam Houston.

Other interesting NIT matchups include #4 Washington St. vs Eastern Washington, #1 Oregon vs UC Irvine (they met in regular season and UCI won), and Villanova is unseeded vs #2 Liberty.

North Carolina, who was #1 when they faced the Pilots in the PKI85, did not get an invite to the NCAA tourney, and declined an invite to the NIT.

Michigan St. got a #7 seed in the NCAA tourney.

USF, LMU and BYU did not get invites to the NIT.

up7587 wrote:In the NIT, which is 32 teams with the top 16 seeded with the next sixteen placed based on regional match-ups, SCU is the only WCC team, facing #2 Sam Houston.

Other interesting NIT matchups include #4 Washington St. vs Eastern Washington, #1 Oregon vs UC Irvine (they met in regular season and UCI won), and Villanova is unseeded vs #2 Liberty.

North Carolina, who was #1 when they faced the Pilots in the PKI85, did not get an invite to the NCAA tourney, and declined an invite to the NIT.

Michigan St. got a #7 seed in the NCAA tourney.

USF, LMU and BYU did not get invites to the NIT.

SCU will be hosting that first round game against Sam Houston on March 15 and it can be viewed (by some) on Deaner's favorite streaming network, ESPN+.

This year the semi-final and final will be played at the Orleans Arena on March 28 (ESPN) and March 30 (ESPN2).

Note: No WCC teams are in the 16-team CBI field this season...

DoubleDipper wrote:Note: No WCC teams are in the 16-team CBI field this season...

They must have declined to pay to play. The top couple seeds are in the same KenPom range and USF and LMU, and the rest are lower. About half are lower, some much lower, than UP, but they have winning records.

The NIT automatically takes any team that won their regular season conference title but lost in their conference tourney and was not an at-large NCAA selection. For example, EWU was KenPom #122, lower than #75 BYU, #100 USF and #107 LMU. But you get enough of those AQs, and there is no room for other mid-major also rans.

Usual complaints about teams left out.  This article (https://www.sbnation.com/2023/3/12/23636801/march-madness-snubs-rutgers-vanderbilt-ncaa-tournament) says Rutgers and Vanderbilt were snubs.  Rutgers was 9th place in the Big 10.  Sheesh, can't finish in the top half of your power conference and think you belong in the tourney.  Meanwhile, Vanderbilt was 6th in the SEC, but the 10th highest ranked SEC team in KenPom.  Cry harder.