SDFDuck's Week 16 Ballot
| Rank | Team | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Houston | Cougars ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) (As we get down to the end of the season, you're going to see a lot of folks complaining about their coaches.) |
| 2 | Alabama | Why does everyone think they can out-bid Bama for Nate Oats? They're a basketball school! (Apparently fans of every school in the A10 not named Fordham or George Washington...) |
| 3 | Kansas | B12 gauntlet (... wants to fire their coach. "The A10 sucks this year, we should be winning this conference easily!" they all say.) |
| 4 | UCLA | Death, Taxes, Mick Cronin whining about seeding. (Be careful what you wish for, non-P6 schools. Fire your semi-successful coach at your own peril.) |
| 5 | Purdue | Court. Storm. Magnets. (Allow me to present to you Exhibit A in such matters: UT-Arlington firing Scott Cross.) |
| 6 | Arizona | Azurite* (In 2018, UT Arlington AD Jim Baker fired then-coach Scott Cross after a 21-13 season, his third consecutive with 20+ wins.) |
| 7 | Virginia | Cutting it kinda close there, eh? (Baker was quoted as saying: "We want to be the best at what we do. Your aspirations have to be that you can get to the NCAAs every year. That's what we want.") |
| 8 | Marquette | Still not getting enough respect. (In 12 seasons Cross was 225-161, and not only holds the record for all-time wins at the school and wins in a season with 27 the previous year...) |
| 9 | Texas | B12 gauntlet (... he is also the only coach in the program's 55 season history to finish his tenure at UT-A with a record above .500. It is by no means an easy job.) |
| 10 | Baylor | B12 gauntlet (Well surely AD Baker was able to find the next Brad Stevens or Mark Few, right? With that kind of ambition, coaches would be falling over each other to take the job, right?) |
| 11 | Kansas State | B12 gauntlet (Chris Ogden lasted three seasons at UT-Arlington before deciding that an assistant gig under noted scumbag Chris Beard at Texas was a better job.) |
| 12 | Gonzaga | Could they be UNDER-rated this season?! (After that, Greg Young was just fired mid-season in year two. Brutal.) |
| 13 | Miami (FL) | Wooga Poplar. (Stability is critical for non-P6 programs. Culture is huge, and continuity from coach to coach is of the utmost importance.) |
| 14 | Xavier | (That's why so many coaching legends opt to name coaches in waiting, and why schools tend to replace coaches who move upwards or retire with former assistants.) |
| 15 | Iowa State | B12 gauntlet (And why it's so important to take a step back and evaluate the totality of a coach's tenure, mitigating circumstances, and other factors before jumping to conclusions.) |
| 16 | Tennessee | *Prolongued wet fart noise* (UT-Arlington might be a nice job. It might have awesome facilities for a program at its level. It might be in a high-talent area with deep-pocketed boosters.) |
| 17 | San Diego State | (But they are also a school in the WAC who has one NCAA Tournament appearance in 55 seasons of playing D1 basketball, and they made it under... Scott Cross. Whom they fired.) |
| 18 | Saint Mary's | (For schools outside of the P6, I can understand the desire to make the Tournament every season. I really do. But it's so, so much harder at this level to do that consistently.) |
| 19 | Creighton | (And firing someone who has consistently shown he can get you 20-25 wins a season doesn't make the job any more attractive to other coaches.) |
| 20 | Florida Atlantic | HOOT HOOT HOOT HOOT HOOT HOOT HOOT |
| 21 | UConn | (Coaches like job security, and the Selection Committee has shown the proclivity to go out of their way to deny bids to deserving non-P6s.) |
| 22 | Indiana | Every week I rank them around here, and every week IU fans get on my case for ranking them closer to their metrics than their AP poll spot - see below. |
| 23 | Providence | Creepiest mascot in D1. (So A10 fans, calm down. Mike Rhoades is a good coach. Anthony Grant is a good coach. Drew Valentine is a good coach.) |
| 24 | Northwestern | NCSoS: 279. Into my doghouse you go. (Billy Lange is the only A10 coach I'd consider getting rid of. They should have never fired Martelli to begin with.) |
| 25 | Boise State | Broncos Country, let's rock? (The grass ain't always greener.) |
Overall Rationale
If Penn State or Minnesota had IU's body of work and run of recent form, they wouldn't be projected as the highest 4-seed in the bracket by the Selection Committee. Name recognition carries weight, which is why I'm all but certain UNC will figure out a way to sneak into the First Four based on "eye test" or some other nebulous nonsense that the Committee cooks up every season. | In local news, Louisville beat Clemson - or should I say Clemson beat themselves against Louisville. Kenny Payne should still be fired for blaming a clearly talented group of players for the team's laughably bad 4-23 record.