It's Time To Go Dancing

If your a fan of College Basketball, your favorite time of the year has finally arrived. March Madness has come around, its time to figure out who really is the best of the best in the College Basketball World for the 2015-16 season. Every year, a team can pull an upset and make a magic run or two. Its bound to happen. At least once a tournament, you can get an upset somewhere along the line. You just never know, which is what makes the big dance so much fun. With that being said, lets take a look at some stats about the tournament and how this year's big dance could possibly play out.

To start it off, we need to get from 68 to 64 teams, so there are your four play in games. Those four games are as follows:

#11 Vanderbilt takes on #11 Wichita St. Winner plays #6 Arizona
#16 Holy Cross takes on #16 Southern University. Winner Plays #1 Oregon.
#16 Fairleigh Dickinson takes on #16 Florida Gulf Coast. Winner plays #1 North Carolina
#11 Tulsa takes on #11 Michigan. Winners plays #6 Notre Dame

Headinag into the tournament, it is good to be a #1 seed, at least in the opening round. Top Seeds in the tournament are undefeated at 120-0 against the #16 seeds, so Kansas, Oregon, North Carolina and Virgina are locks to more on to the round of 32. After that who knows. Since 1979 there has only been one time that all the #1 seeds have made the final four, which was in 2008 when Kansas (National Champions), Memphis, North Carolina, and UCLA all had a shot at the title. Anybody who has earned a top seed in a region has had the best chances at a title. The lowest seed to ever walk away with a title was a #8 seed, which was Villanova in 1985. A six seed has two National Titles, that being North Carolina State in 1983 and Kansas in 1988. Every other title that has been won has come from either a one, two, three of four seed.

Teams that have low seeds don't have much of a chance going deep in the tournament.  The 8th seed is the lowest to ever claim a title. A sixteen has never moved on, so you can pretty much rule that out. A fifteen seed has gotten as far as the sweet sixteen, that being Florida Gulf Coast in 2013. Cleveland State in 1986 and Chattanooga in 1997 are the highest that a 14 seed has ever gotten, they both went to the sweet sixteen. As for a 13th seed, they too have gone as far as the sweet sixteen. Those teams were: Richmond (1988), Valparaiso (1998), Oklahoma (1999), Bradley (2006), Ohio (2012)and La Salle (2013). The farthest that a "low" seed has ever gotten has been the final four. It's happened four times: the #9 seed Wichita State made the final four in 2013, and three times we've seen a #11 seed make it to the final four: LSU in 1986, George Mason in 2006 and VCU in 2011.

Duke is the defending National Champions, having won their 5th title in school history last year. They still trail the all time king, UCLA who has eleven titles. For this year's big dance two teams are making their debut, Stony Brook and Cal State Bakersfield. Some teams that are invited to the dance I feel don't belong here. I mean that their should be a benchmark to make it to the dance. For example. teams like Vanderbilt (19-13 at large), Oregon State (19-12 at large), Holy Cross (14-19 Auto but under 500), Fairleigh Dickinson (18-19 Auto but under 500), Texas Tech (19-12 at large), Syracuse (19-14 at large). How is it that teams under 20 wins get into the tournament?

I can name at least five teams that should be in. See I feel that teams should get in if you hit at least the 20 win mark. I know about the automatic bids for winning conference and that's fine. But some of the at large bid that don't have 20 wins is a bit much. Case in point how is it that Monmouth, a mid-major team with 27 wins not get the cut? Monmouth played 17 road games and 23 games away from home. That led to victories against Notre Dame and USC. Then there's Saint Mary's, a 27-5 school who won the West Coast Conference regular-season title, beating Gonzaga twice in the process. Sadly they couldn't beat Gonzaga in the conference title game. Oh and there's San Diego State, a 25-6 school that lost in the Mountain West tournament final to Fresno State and paid the price with an NCAA omission, the first time in six years. The last time San Diego State missed the cut in 2009, they went to the semifinals of the NIT.

There's a lot to get excited about. Some teams belong here, while others leave you scratching your head. The big dance always  Who is going to walk away champions? Who's going to pull off the biggest upset? We'll find out over the course of the next couple of weeks!