March Madness Update--How'd The Curmudgeonly "Final Four Rule" Work Out?

[Note: The Curmudgeon just returned from a Spring Break respite in sunny Florida.]

So, how'd we do with our "Final Four" rule for the NCAA tournament, i.e., our proposal that no team from a "power" conference should get to go to the Big Dance unless it finishes in EITHER it's conference's regular season top four, OR in the final four of it's conference tournament?

The results were not as consistent as last year. There were five teams in the tournament field this year that flunked the final four test: Arizona, Miami, Oregon, Vanderbilt and Villanova. Of those, three lost in the first round: Arizona and Oregon, both from the Pac 10 (a pretty weak "power conference" to begin with) and Vanderbilt, which lost to number 12 seed Siena. Arizona is a double stinker, because it flunked the final four rule last year as well, and also lost in the first round. Note to Selection Committee: don't foist Arizona on the field unless they really have a terrific season!

However, two of our final four flunkies won: Villanova upset Clemson, and Miami put away mid-major at-large team St. Mary's. Both 'Nova and the 'Canes play today, so we'll see if either has the savvy to make it to the Sweet 16.

This is a better showing than last year, when the only final four flunkie to make it through did so by beating another final four flunkie.

We also said to watch the mid-major at-large teams to see how they did. Out of six, only one--highly regarded Xavier--advanced. Xavier, which is through to the Sweet 16, was an at-large pick only because it was upset in it's conference tournament.

That's not to say that some other smaller schools haven't done quite well: Siena, Davidson, Butler and Western Kentucky all made it past round 1.

We think our final four rule is still a good one: it makes the regular season and the conference tournaments in the power conferences more relevant; it takes some of the subjectivity out of the "bubble" selections; it downplays RPI, which is unfairly tilted to the power conferences; and it opens more space to the mid-majors, which in turn makes the tournament more interesting.

Finally, we wouldn't make our final four rule a hard and fast one: the tournament selection committee could still go with a school that flunked the final four test if there were really good reasons for doing so. Instead, the rule would be a presumptive--failure to satisfy the final four rule would mean a team presumptively isn't going. (By the same token, meeting the final four rule is no assurance of being selected.)