We all knew this college basketball season would be an unusual one. But when it came to March, I think few of us had any idea just how much that would be the case. And yet, the results still feels like they make sense.
One thing we had to know is that this year, a lot of oddities were bound to happen, whether things we rarely ever see or have never seen before, as well as a seeming reversal of regular season results.
Making judgments of teams or conferences just off the bottom-line results is harder than usual this time around. So many teams have pauses during the season due to the coronavirus, with a few having ones that lasted over a month. The Atlantic 10 was hit especially hard by this, notably Saint Louis, who still ended up as one of the first four teams out after a long pause turned a promising season with the potential to be an at-large team into one where they didn’t even appear to be that close to the bubble. The MAAC was also hit hard by this and lost plenty of games as well.
Besides that, the sample sizes were much smaller on the whole as well. The Ivy League canceled the season, which took away a number of non-conference games for schools, while the Patriot League canceled non-league play. Pac-12 schools played a reduced slate as well.
We saw some of the effects in the conference tournaments. The America East championship game came down to the No. 4 vs. No. 6 seed, the first time in conference history that neither of the top two seeds played in the final. The CAA championship game came down to No. 6 vs. No. 8, easily the highest sum total of the two seeds in the final in the conference’s history. It was also the first time since 2008 that neither the No. 1 nor No. 2 seed was in the game and the first time in the conference’s history that neither finalist was seeded as high as No. 3. The Pac-12 championship came down to No. 3 vs. No. 5.
Along the way, several teams had to depart conference tournaments early due to the virus. None was worse than North Carolina A&T, the top seed in the MEAC, having to withdraw due to a test. At least teams like Kansas and Virginia were still able to play in the NCAA Tournament, though the Cavaliers had a close call.
The Big Ten was the class of the country in the regular season, placing two No. 1 seeds as well as No. 2 Ohio State. But they fell flat in the opening weekend, with only Michigan advancing to the second weekend and Illinois being the first No. 1 seed to go down. Meanwhile, the Pac-12 was on the other end of the spectrum, placing five teams in the field and seeing only Colorado not make it to the Sweet 16.
What else is unusual? This year’s Sweet 16 has the highest average seed in the tournament’s history at 5.88, with four double-digit seeds leading the way, and only one region (the West) lacks a double-digit seed. None of those is a bigger story than Oral Roberts, the second No. 15 seed ever to advance that far. The program had a great run over a decade ago behind the legendary careers of Caleb Green and Ken Tutt, but those teams never did what this team has done. Oregon State is a big story, as the Beavers were bid thieves in winning the Pac-12 Tournament to become the fifth team in from that conference. Now they’re in the Sweet 16.
We saw two No. 13 seeds win first round games, as well as Abilene Christian become quite the story in knocking off Texas as a No. 14 seed. If you saw Abilene Christian in the Southland Conference championship game, you knew this was a possibility, though they didn’t win in quite the same fashion.
All of this has come in an NCAA Tournament without Duke or Kentucky, and that nearly didn’t have Michigan State or UCLA. But Syracuse is in the Sweet 16 despite an unimpressive regular season, so things seem a little more “normal” as the Orange have done this before. The 2-3 zone does it again come tournament time.
Finally, there was VCU. The Rams had to withdraw because of a positive coronavirus test, and you have to feel for their kids. It is devastating to have this opportunity snatched away like this, although we all understand the protocol.
This season has been anything but “normal”, as we expected. The NCAA Tournament thus far has fit right in with that, and we should not expect anything different in the remaining rounds from here.