Also see our Daily Threads, March 17, and the News Digest for Yesterday, March 16, as well as Daily Threads for Yesterday, March 16
NCAA Tournament 2014 Schedule: Times, Dates, Live Streaming and TV Info ↗
BRACKET: PDF ↗ | Join KU Buckets Group on ESPN ↗
** KU gets No. 2 seed in South region for NCAA Tournament ↗**
The Kansas University men's basketball team earned a No. 2 seed in the 2014 NCAA Tournament and will open its run at 3:10 p.m. CDT on Friday in St. Louis against 15th-seeded Eastern Kentucky. The game will be broadcast on TBS.
The Jayhawks (24-9), who won their 10th straight Big 12 regular season title earlier this season, were put into the South regional, where Florida sits as the No. 1 seed.
Newell: Expect Eastern Kentucky to pressure defensively, fire tons of 3s against KU basketball ↗
The good news for KU is that Eastern Kentucky ranks 129th in KenPom's rankings, which isn't that scary of a number.
The bad news? The Colonels exhibit a unique style that lends itself to a high variance of outcomes. They shoot a lot of 3s and force a lot of turnovers, and because of that, they landed on ESPN's Giant Killers list earlier this month.
No. 15-seeded Colonels draw comparisons to Iowa State, Michigan ↗
** It's go time: Bill Self talks March Madness ↗**
Even though Self barely had time to read up on KU's Friday opponent, Eastern Kentucky — let alone scout the Colonels by watching some game video — a room full of reporters awaited him at 6 p.m. inside Allen Fieldhouse to talk about the matchup between No. 2-seeded Kansas (24-9) and the No. 15 seed, EKU (24-9), out of the Ohio Valley Conference.
Mellinger: In season of change for Kansas Jayhawks, coach Bill Self has adapted, too ↗
LAWRENCE — The screaming is more connected now. With more context. More understanding.
The same mistake that caused Bill Self’s face to turn tomato red and practice to stop for three minutes now causes him to roll his eyes and use a sort of angry shorthand.
A man can only go nuclear so many times and, besides, at this point in the season Wayne Selden knows he can’t let the ball stick for this particular play to work. He knows what he did wrong before anyone says anything.
** What's in a seed?: How Kansas has fared in the NCAAs on each of the top 4 seed lines ↗**
Believe it or not, this is just the second time in KU coach Bill Self's 11 seasons that the Jayhawks received a No. 2 seed.
Since Self took over the program in the 2003-04 season, Kansas has entered the Big Dance as a No. 1 seed five times, and now two times apiece on the No. 2, No. 3 and No. 4 seed lines.
Video: NCAA chairman Wellman explaining seeding ↗
Pattani: NCAA, BPI correspond, to a point ↗
Comparing the top of the NCAA men’s basketball championship field to ESPN’s Basketball Power Index shows a lot of similarity in how the selection committee and
ESPN’s rating system evaluated teams. Although 31 of the 36 at-large teams in the field would also have been selected had only BPI been used to select the field, there are notable differences in the seeds of some prominent teams and how BPI would have placed them.BPI rankings corresponded with the first three No. 1 seeds, as Arizona, Florida, and Wichita State are the top three teams in BPI (in that order). But unlike in the previous two official seasons of BPI, the No. 1 overall seed (Florida) is not the No. 1 team in BPI as of Selection Sunday.
Keating & Brenner: Giant killers: South region ↗
No. 2 Kansas Jayhawks (88.2) vs. No. 15 Eastern Kentucky Colonels (18.5)
Upset Chance: 5.6 percentIf our model could weep or drink, it would be crying in its beer over this matchup. We had an eye on Eastern Kentucky way back when its extreme stats lit up our spreadsheets last year, and then this season, the Colonels bombed their way to the OVC championship. Their defense, relentlessly pressuring, forces bushels of turnovers (24.2 percent of opponent possessions, ranking fourth in the country), while their offense, relentlessly passing, opens shots on the outside (38.6 percent on 3s, ranking 28th) and under the basket (56.2 percent on 2-point attempts, ranking second). Eastern Kentucky's aggression constantly puts opponents on the line (55.3 percent of points on free throws, ranking 343rd) and lands the Colonels in foul trouble. And their lack of size (effective height: minus-3.0 inches) leaves them markedly vulnerable to box outs and blocks. But on the whole, their tradeoffs threaten to make them a much more lethal Killer -- against the right kind of Giant. The Colonels are an example -- in fact, the only halfway decent example this season -- of a "Steph Curry Killer," the kind of David that uses sharpshooting to fell a Goliath. And they badly needed to face a Generic Giant, an opponent without dominant rebounding tendencies, to have a shot at an upset.
Instead, they got Kansas. The Jayhawks are tall, blast opponents with 55.6 percent inside shooting (ranking eighth in the nation), and seize 37.1 percent of offensive rebounds. They've also played the hardest schedule in the country, while Eastern Kentucky's SOS ranks 301st. The sad truth is that Killers similar to Eastern Kentucky have beaten Giants similar to Kansas just twice in 13 tries since 2007, and never by overcoming a gap as yawning as the canyon between the Jayhawks and Colonels. Eastern Kentucky is always fun to watch, but sometimes the best advice is to avoid picking an upset that's not going to happen.
Sports Science: Andrew Wiggins ↗
ESPN Sport Science examines what sets Andrew Wiggins apart from everyone else in college hoops.
Bedore: Kansas assistant Townsend recalls days at EKU ↗
Former Western Kentucky basketball standout Kurtis Townsend remembers catching a lot of flak during a reception held before his one and only season as assistant hoops coach at Eastern Kentucky University.
“There were a lot of hard feelings about that. One of the first things they did when they introduced me ... they said, ‘Hey, a Western Kentucky grad,’ and they all booed me,” Townsend, Kansas University’s 10th-year assistant coach, said with a smile.
AP: Study: Eight teams fail to meet standard; KU perfect ↗
Orlando, Fla. — An annual study of the schools in the men’s NCAA tournament shows a slight increase in teams that fall below graduation rate standards.
The University of Central Florida’s Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport said in its report Monday that eight teams that made the 2014 men’s bracket fall below the NCAA-mandated Academic Progress Rate score of 930, equivalent to a 50 percent graduation rate. Last year six teams didn’t reach that benchmark.
Pattani: Filling out a bracket with BPI's insight ↗
While ESPN’s Basketball Power Index wasn’t designed to be purely predictive, there has been interest in using BPI to help with picking NCAA Tournament brackets. It’s one thing to just look at the BPI rankings and pick the higher-ranked team to win each matchup. If you do that this year, you end up with a pretty chalky bracket with all four No. 1 seeds making the Final Four and Arizona over Florida in the title game.
A more nuanced way to look at things, however, is to determine the percentage chance of each team getting to each round. This can help not only by taking into account the effects of opponent strength round-by-round (beyond just “better BPI”), but it also helps illuminate what might be considered smart upset picks and undervalued or overvalued teams.
Dodd: KU knows it has to win while awaiting Embiid ↗
If you believe in the aura of advanced statistics — the formulas and algorithms that dominate the modern sports landscape — the loss of a promising freshman center can be overcome.
Read more here: http://www.kansas.com/2014/03/17/3352253/ku-knows-it-has-to-win-while-awating.html#storylink=cpy ↗
Also see our Daily Threads, March 17, and the News Digest for Yesterday, March 16, as well as Daily Threads for Yesterday, March 16
