By pure coincidence, less than 24 hours after I submitted the post above, USA Today published this article:
2020 NCAA Tournament Bracketology: Dayton rises to No. 1 seed, replacing San Diego State - USA Today - March 5, 2020
The Dayton Flyers have ascended to a projected No. 1 seed in the latest NCAA tournament bracketology.
Dayton drubbed Rhode Island, a bubble team, on the road Wednesday night by 27 points and is set to close out the regular season at home vs. George Washington, which has a 12-18 overall record. Not only have the Flyers (28-2, 17-0, 3 NET score) not lost in conference play, they've only lost this year in overtime and on neutral courts — to Kansas and Colorado. They've won 19 games in a row.
Skeptics will say criticize the strength of the Atlantic 10. It ranks as the eighth-best conference in the NET score and is only projected to send one team to the NCAAs (Rhode Island and Richmond are on the bubble). But a blind résumé test will reveal Dayton's profile is more than worthy of a No. 1 seed with five Quadrant 1 victories, a top-25 strength of schedule and no bad losses.
Compare Dayton's credentials with San Diego State (27-1, 4 NET), the team it leapfrogged on Thursday's bracket, and the Flyers have more Quad 1 wins, a better NET score and a better strength of schedule. Wednesday's rout over Rhode Island qualified as a Quad 1 victory for Dayton, and that was enough to change the top seeding lines.
No. 1 seeds (in order): Kansas, Baylor, Gonzaga, Dayton.
While accepting that my opinion may be biased, I still think Gonzaga is presently over-rated by the various Bracketologists. Here’s why:
OFFICIAL NCAA NITTY-GRITTY REPORT (through games of March 17, 2019) – NCAA.org
NET Ranking • Team • SOS Ranking • Non-conference SOS Ranking • (Record vs. Quad 1 and Quad 2 Teams)
2 • Gonzaga • 52 • 67 • (10-3)
OFFICIAL NCAA NITTY-GRITTY REPORT (through games of March 4, 2020) – NCAA.org
NET Ranking • Team • SOS Ranking • Non-conference SOS Ranking • (Record vs. Quad 1 and Quad 2 Teams)
1 • Kansas • 1 • 1 • (21-3)
2 • Gonzaga • 128 • 278 • (9-2), including a 82-64 loss to Michigan in the Battle 4 Atlantis championship game in the Bahamas in November.
3 • Dayton • 16 • 32 • (12-2)
For whatever reasons,
Gonzaga’s 2019-20 schedule is far, far easier than their 2018-19 schedule, which brings up an important question:
Does a team who ran through a cupcake schedule deserve a No. 1 seed?In previous years, the answer to that question has always been "no". We’ll see what this year’s answer is in nine days.
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Back to the Big East:
Butler Bulldogs Men's Basketball . . .
2009–10 Butler Bulldogs Men's Basketball TeamThis very lengthy article is well worth a read:
Butler's incredible 2010 NCAA run, remembered by Coach K, Tom Izzo, Frank Martin, and Jim Boeheim – NCAA.com – March 5, 2020
Once upon a time — 10 years ago to be exact — there was college basketball team from Butler. It was a charming bunch, with a dashing young coach named Brad Stevens, a lovable bulldog mascot, and a gaggle of players who weren’t all that familiar with the national spotlight, but also didn’t care about the odds supposedly stacked against them.
Those Bulldogs lost a game at UAB on Dec. 22, 2009, and then the strangest thing happened. They didn’t lose again for ages. Not in January. Not in February. Not in March. Not until mighty Duke put an end to the ride on April 5 in the national championship game in Indianapolis’ Lucas Oil Stadium, but six miles from the Butler campus. By two points. Barely. Since a Butler shot to win at the buzzer clanged off the rim.
By then, of course, the Bulldogs had become coast-to-coast darlings, from a school of barely 4,000, with a mid-major pedigree. And their home gym gave the world the ultimate sports underdog movie, Hoosiers. How more perfect could it get? To this day, when upstarts dream of a March Madness fantasy, they usually evoke the name of Butler. Ten years later, how to mark the occasion when a legend was made? How about talking to four renowned coaches who tried to stop it?
In the 10 years since, Jim Boeheim, Frank Martin, Tom Izzo and Mike Krzyzewski have coached more than a thousand games among, and all have gone to the Final Four. But each and every one remembers the day in 2010 when they lined up against Butler.
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A lot more numbers:
History of 1 seeds vs. 16 seeds in March Madness – NCAA.com – January 28, 2020
History of 2 seeds vs. 15 seeds in March Madness – NCAA.com – January 30, 2020
History of 3 seeds vs. 14 seeds in March Madness – NCAA.com – February 6, 2020
History of 4 seeds vs. 13 seeds in March Madness – NCAA.com – March 4, 2020
History of 5 seeds vs. 12 seeds in March Madness – NCAA.com – March 4, 2020
History of 6 seeds vs. 11 seeds in March Madness – NCAA.com – February 23, 2020
History of 7 seeds vs. 10 seeds in March Madness – NCAA.com – February 23, 2020
History of 8 seeds vs. 9 seeds in March Madness – NCAA.com – February 23, 2020
On December 27, 2019 Fieldhouse Flyer wrote: NCAA Tournament First Round Record by Seed - PrintYourBrackets.com – April 10, 2019
We have collected data from the past 35 NCAA Tournaments. The information below is from 1985 through 2019. The first year there were 64 teams in the tournament was 1985. The data shows the record of each seed in the first round of every tournament.
Records by Seed MatchupThe table below shows the records for each pairing in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. We analyzed data from 35 tournaments, and there are 4 matchups per tournament, per seeded pair(1 for each region), for a total of 140 games for each seed.
#1 Seed vs #16 Seed - 139-1 - 99.29% Winning Percentage #1 Seed
#2 Seed vs #15 Seed - 132-8 - 94.29% Winning Percentage #2 Seed
#3 Seed vs #14 Seed - 119-21 - 85.00% Winning Percentage #3 Seed
#4 Seed vs #13 Seed - 111-28 - 79.29% Winning Percentage #4 Seed
#5 Seed vs #12 Seed - 90-47 - 64.29% Winning Percentage #5 Seed
#6 Seed vs #11 Seed - 88-51 - 62.86% Winning Percentage #6 Seed
#7 Seed vs #10 Seed - 85-52 - 60.71% Winning Percentage #7 Seed
#8 Seed vs #9 Seed - 69-71 - 49.28% Winning Percentage #8 Seed
Here is the data made into a graph:
![Image](https://www.printyourbrackets.com/images/ncaa-tournament-upsets-by-seed.png)