There’s a debate going on over whether or not Florida Atlantic is a Cinderella, given they entered the NCAA Tournament with 31 wins already under their belt and were comfortably an at-large team in the end.
Florida Atlantic is a Cinderella.
Forcing the Cinderella definition to be seed-dependent turns the NCAA Tournament into the entire season, ignoring the bulk of what these teams have done. A relatively new Division I program earning its second ever tournament berth, then making the Final Four out of that setting? That’s a Cinderella story. The season is more than just the tournament.
Thoughts on the other game last night and the two today:
- UConn is, per KenPom, the best team in the country, and that sentence pisses a lot of people off. Not because they disagree, but because they want you to pull some fancy trick to name a best team rather than just trust a proven system. There is plenty more to basketball than KenPom, and individual games are not decided by who has the higher KenPom rating. Usually, though, that team does win. Somebody saying UConn is the best team in the country is a little something. KenPom saying it is a big something. These guys are the title favorites, even if they do draw Texas. They’re flawed, but this season? They’re the best team, as far as we can tell right now.
- Going off that: Creighton is the better team than San Diego State, but public consensus is oddly not jumping on what San Diego State just did. Recency bias is everywhere, and yet Creighton is a bigger sportsbook favorite than KenPom favorite, and that’s odd when the team they’re playing just took down the top seed. What does San Diego State have to do to get respect?
- Is Miami better than they looked in the regular season? Turns out, yes. Their victory over Houston was the most impressive thing we’ve seen all tournament. But Texas is a lot better, and Texas has a deeper bench than Houston did, which gives them something like a diversified portfolio here.
