Weird bracket overall – WVU fans have to be ticked off. Based on s-curve, Nova was actually seeded higher than WVU. That doesn’t make any sense. Temple was seeded low as well. South is by far the weakest division.

One word of warning, K State is a very good team!

Remember a week or so before they were a possible number 1 seed but they stumbled.

Pitt at a 3-seed is right. Their body of work trumps all the 4s. No one on the FanHouse LiveBlog seemed shocked by it.

The Midwest is a BEAST of a bracket, and the East is almost as tough. Duke seems to be getting a pass to the Final Four, but someone will upset them along the way.

Pitt’s bracket is interesting. Potentially facing Xavier, again. Assuming we survive, Pitt vs. K State will be a war! Jamie and Frank Martin sweating, yelling and pacing the sideline. Two tough teams with intense coaches. I hope we get to see that one.

Xavier is a bit scary, they’re higher than us in both KenPom and Sagarin. I have to digest some of the other rankings still though.

K-State may be the “worst” of the #2 seeds, but they are still a very good team. They are led by 2 very good, very tough guards. If both Pitt and KSU get to the third round, I think it would be a very interesting game.

2002 South Region (#3): Pittsburgh’s Civic Arena, then Louisville
2003 Midwest Region (#2): Boston, then Albany
2004 East Region (#3): Milwaukee (where we had to play Wisconsin in 2nd round), then East Rutherford, N.J.
2005 West Region (#9): Boise (lost to Pacific in 1st round)
2006 West Region (#5): Detroit, lost to Bradley in 2nd round
2007 West Region (#3): Buffalo, then San Jose, Calif.
2008 South Region (#4): Denver, lost in 2nd round
2009 East Region (#1): Dayton, then Boston
2010: West Region (#3): Milwaukee, then Salt Lake City if Pitt makes the Sweet Sixteen

With the exceptions of 2002, 2003, 2006 and 2009, Pitt has had (or would have had to) travel to another time zone for its games in either the first and second rounds. That’s almost two-thirds of the time in the last 9 years. I realize that Pitt’s in the Big East, and with so many teams making the tourney, they can’t put all the conference members close to home. But even when Pitt’s been a top three seed, it’s had to do a lot of traveling — often to places where people don’t know that “Pitt” is how you say it … not “Pittsburgh.”

That all said, I LOVE the draw Pitt got in this year’s bracket. Of course, I said that the years they had to face Bradley and Kent State, too … and we know how that turned out. But I like our second-round match-up against Xavier — which isn’t as dangerous without Pitt grad Sean Miller coaching them — and Kansas State has the whiff of an over-seed to me. Yes, they are good. But they haven’t tasted serious NCAA competition much in recent years. The Wildcats’ appearance in the tourney in 2008 was their first in 12 years, and they didn’t make the dance last year. I liken them to South Carolina, which came out of nowhere to get a #2 seed in 1997 and got bounced in the first round (to Coppin State in Pittsburgh’s Civic Arena, of all places).

Pitt’s been a consistent basketball power for a decade now. How about a little respect.

First, you are correct that the number of BE teams making it sometimes works against Pitt, plus there’s an effort to favor the higher seeded team within the conference. I think that’s what happened this year. Pitt was likely the #5 BE team in terms of seeding, and in the end, I’d rather be in our bracket than where G’town ended up.

Second, when it comes to placing Big East teams in Round 1-2 games, Pitt is considered a “Midwest” BE team. That’s why we end up in places like Milwaukee, Detroit, Dayton, etc. Those cities are a lot closer to the Burgh than they are to Storrs, D.C, Syracuse, Philly, etc.

Lastly, as far as your contention that Duke gets favortism when ranked as high as Pitt: I’m no Duke fan by any means, but in the past decade, they were a #1 seed 6 of the 10 years. We were that once and they were the #2 in our region.
In their “off years” it looked like this:
2003 – #3 West Region – Rd. 1 Salt Lake City
2007 – #6 West Region – Rd. 1 Buffalo (with Pitt)
2008 – #2 West Region – Rd. 1 D.C
2009 – #2 East Region with Pitt as #1

Have I felt we were screwed once or twice? Sure, but most teams could make that case, even Duke. No sense in complaining about it. If anyone has a complaint, it’s Kansas being the overall #1 and being put in what most think is the toughest bracket. But Bill Self isn’t complaining. He’s excited about their chances. I’m excited about Pitt’s.

Milwaukee is much farther away from Pburgh than DC or Philly, by a long shot. Also, its not just about raw mileage, its about where the center of your fan base is and where they’d likely travel — more Pitt Alums in DC/Philly/NYC than Wisconsin or Dayton…finally, if we win, we have to travel way out west for our toughest games — a distinct disadvantage to sticking east or south.

I think we can do well, but it never hurts to have more of your fans at the game…I’d have preferred a 4-5 seed in the east and taken my chances…we have no fear but fear itself!

Also, the committee has a hard enough time considering fair locals based on where a school is physically located let alone where their fanbase is located. You’re asking for the impossible if you expect them to consider that. How would they even measure that on a team by team basis?

My comments aren’t about what is BEST FOR PITT. They’re about the reasons that Pitt goes to the regions and host cities they are sent to. The committee has to try to be fair to the majority of the 64 teams and not just ours. My comments are in response to some thinking that there’s some sort of bias against Pitt from the committee.

Also, since there are no games in D.C. or NYC or Philly, what tourney are we playing in – the NIT? Buffalo and Providence each have two BE teams playing there already and all are higher seeded than Pitt. That leaves Milwaukee as the closest Round 1 locale.

Finally, I grew up in Pittsburgh and am a Pitt alum and longtime Panther Club member. I know plenty about the Pitt fanbase and the Northeast.

Again, look at this with some logic instead of through Pitt-biased eyes. Sure I’d like them to always play close to home. I’d also like someone to hand me a million bucks. Neither is realistic.

First off, my initial response was to JIM’S two comments. I was attempting to explain possible reasons for Pitt’s assignments and also show that Duke was not getting favoritism as he asserted, since they were in the West as much as Pitt when seeded accordingly. Those were all points made by JIM. It had nothing to do with your “joke” and had nothing to do with YOU.

Then you jumped in giving me geography lessons about the distance between Pittsburgh vs. Milwaukee and other cities I noted (BE team locales), when my point was about the distance between Milwaukee and other Big East team cities.

I nicely attempted to clarify myself in case there was a misunderstanding. You responded with some rant about Pitt’s fanbase and how since I live in Florida, I know nothing about that or the Northeast. It had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with any of my points and was downright disrespectful, hence the knucklehead comment from me.

Again, my original comment was to JIM in an attempt to offer a different point of view and reasons for that point of view to Jim’s. I even agreed that I occasionally had the same perception as JIM. It had nothing to do with YOU.

So who’s being the “pompous do#che bag” here?