Always 75% of the 68 gone in the first week/weekend and

[Xavier2005]

The play starts Tuesday and Wednesday with the 8 teams playing into the field of 64. 68 teams, then 64, then 32 then 16 left from a Tuesday to a Sunday play . Within 6 days 52 teams lose, about about 75% of the entire field. A team has to play well to great (and or have some luck/meaning the last second shot wins)to be part of the Sweet 16. A lot of blue bloods lost the first and second days of the field of 64, then blue bloods lost during the third and fourth day of play. Survival in The Dance is difficult because a team has to be 1 of 4...the top 25%/the winners of just 2 games!!! Xavier's post season was unremarkable...won 1 of 2 in the BE Tournament and won 1 of 2 in the Dance. Great regular season, but a poor post season record. The 3 Elite 8 Xavier teams will be known as the best of the best in post season play.

[Xavier2005]

This year a number of top quality teams did NOT just lose or lose on a last second shot...they were beaten down by lower seeded teams from minor conferences etc. Is this parity??? Or are major teams today just over rated because they play in the Big 5 Conferences.

[xu koop scoop]

The Big 5 plus the BE & maybe 2 or 3 from AAC & A10 hog all the spots. Mainly the Big 5 plus BE. Seems to me many of these other conferences have 2 teams that could compete and sadly often send a team that is not at the top of their league due to conference tourneys. Felt kind of bad for NKU this year in that respect as they lost to a Cleveland St team playing in Detroit. UMBC, Buffalo & Loyola all proved this . Am I missing somebody?

[thecoach]

The 3 point shot is the great equalizer. We've lived it. In short 2 game series if you're hot, you can potentially take down much better overall teams who are not familiar with your roster and style of play. Without the 3 pointer, the game would be return much more to a battle of size and defense.

[mumuskie87]

The play starts Tuesday and Wednesday with the 8 teams playing into the field of 64. 68 teams, then 64, then 32 then 16 left from a Tuesday to a Sunday play . Within 6 days 52 teams lose, about about 75% of the entire field. A team has to play well to great (and or have some luck/meaning the last second shot wins)to be part of the Sweet 16. A lot of blue bloods lost the first and second days of the field of 64, then blue bloods lost during the third and fourth day of play. Survival in The Dance is difficult because a team has to be 1 of 4...the top 25%/the winners of just 2 games!!! Xavier's post season was unremarkable...won 1 of 2 in the BE Tournament and won 1 of 2 in the Dance. Great regular season, but a poor post season record. The 3 Elite 8 Xavier teams will be known as the best of the best in post season play.

Still plenty of blue bloods left in the tournament - Kansas, Duke, UK, Syracuse, Nova.
Lot of parity in the top 30 or schools.
Only two double digit seeds left - Syracuse and Loyola. My new favorite team.
Big 12 and ACC are ranked 1 and 2 by KenPom and they have 1/2 of the teams in the S16.
SEC has 2, Big 10 has 2 and BE has 1.