WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? Can anyone explain. Is The Commish going to reseed the whole tournament?
ASUNCommish@ASUNCommish·9hTourney time is approaching! Best time of the year!
Love that fans are engaged and asking questions. Yes, the ASUN Basketball Tournament will re-seed for our semifinal round only. Host privilege for regular season performance. Stay passionate and root FOR your TEAM!
This could be worst than we were treated by OVC! Am I wrong here? This was tweeted last night about 9 hours ago. Direst copy & paste.
I'm not sure where you're getting "reseed the whole tournament" out of "re-seed for our semifinal round only". Or how "host privilege for regular season performance" somehow translates to JSU being treated worse than we were in the OVC.
Basically, the tourney bracket is only seeded for the opening and quarterfinal rounds:
FIRST ROUND
#2E bye
#3W vs #6E
#4E vs #5W
#1W bye <-- If JSU maintains position, this will be us.
#2W bye
#3E vs #6W
#4W vs #5E
#1E bye
QUARTERS
#2E vs #3W/#6E winner
#1W vs #4E/#5W winner
#2W vs #3E/#6W winner
#1E vs #4W/#5E winner
(For the following hypothetical, I'm just using the current standings as of 2/17. The teams could change...)
After quarterfinals, let's say in the top half of the bracket, JSU (#1W) and JU (#2E) both took care of business. But over on the other side of the bracket, the world has turned upside down. Stetson (#5E) wins its opener, and then beats Liberty (#1E) on a miracle 3-pointer as time expires. Meanwhile, the UNA Lions (#6W) pull a monkey out of their butt like they did last year, and win both their opener and, in a stunner, their quarterfinal matchup against #2W Bellarmine.
With no adjustments, Semis would look like this:
#1W JSU (a 20-win team by this point) vs #2E JU (also a 20-win team)
#5E Stetson (just under .500) vs #6W UNA (with nearly 20 LOSSES)
This effectively makes JSU's semifinal game the championship game, as both the Gamecocks and the Dolphins would be HEAVY favorites to win the final over the two teams on the other side of the bracket.
By re-seeding, the ASUN would create this much more intriguing scenario:
#1W JSU vs #6W UNA
#2E JU vs #5E Stetson
This would reward the two best remaining teams with a clearer path to the finals, while hopefully insuring the championship game pits the two strongest teams against one another.
Sure, UNA or Stetson could assume the role of spoiler/Cinderella, and if that's the case, then they will have earned the right to the final game. They wouldn't have merely lucked in because the best teams in their bracket stumbled out of the gate.
But there's another reason, which I'm 100% positive is something Gumbart is considering:
Let's say JSU and JU both have 20-games entering the tournament. By virtue of their quarterfinal wins, they'd enter semis with 21 wins.
If they play each other in semis, one finishes the tournament with 21 wins. The other (assuming they win the tournament) would finish with 23 wins.
If the semis are reseeded as above, and both JSU and JU win, they enter the championship game at 22 wins each. The winner would again finish with 23.
So what's the difference?
If JSU wins the trophy, entering the NCAA tournament, the Gamecocks could have 23 wins, with conference tourney wins against a bunch of .500 (and worse) teams. Or the Gamecocks could have 23 wins including a finals victory over 22-win JU.
Which would rate better in computer rankings? Which would look better to the tournament selection committee?
Even if JSU loses in the championship round, the Gamecocks would finish with 22 wins, with their final loss coming against a 23-win Dolphin squad. A decent seeding in the NIT could be a real possibility.
Without the reseeding, the Gamecocks would end up as a 21-win team that didn't make their own conference finals. The NIT would still be a possibility, but we'd be screwed in the seedings.