The NCAA announced today the 20 potential sites for the upcoming NCAA Tournament. Florida State wasn't one of them.
The Seminoles failed to make the Top 20 (the list will be whittled down to 16 actual sites in the coming weeks) and will be forced to go on the road for the entire postseason. Assuming, of course, they make the postseason.
Clearly, FSU put in a competitive bid to host, and the Seminoles could still be a 1 seed even at someone else's regional, but after this weekend they won't play another game at Howser Stadium this year.
Mike Martin, Jr. was worried about this from the beginning. Because the ACC athletic directors voted to have a 50-game season (as opposed to the normal 56), he thought the conference was going to struggle with RPI rankings at the end of the year. Because the conference teams wouldn't be able to play enough non-conference teams to bump up their RPIs and would instead just be beating up on each other. And therefore, if the committee went strictly by RPI numbers to select hosts, then the ACC would be at a disadvantage.
He wasn't wrong.
The ACC only has two potential regional hosts in Pitt and Notre Dame. Meanwhile, the SEC has eight. The SEC also played a full 56-game schedule.
It would appear, looking at the list below, that the committee stuck to its typical plan of using the RPI as the predominant factor in selecting regional hosts.
The 20 hosts are all in the Top 28 of the latest RPI rankings. Florida State is 39th.
Of the eight teams ranked in the Top 28 that aren't potential hosts, four (Fairfield, Old Dominion, Indiana State, Northeastern) were almost certainly left out because of facility requirements. LSU and Oklahoma State likely didn't receive a bid because of poor conference records.
At any rate, we'll see where FSU goes if selected. But nobody would be surprised if the Seminoles end up in the Gainesville Regional. Because it's the NCAA. And that would be the easiest thing for them to do.
Also, it might have helped teams like FSU and N.C. State and Georgia Tech and UVA and Virginia Tech and Clemson and Duke and Louisville (all ranked in the Top 50 in the RPI) if the Selection Committee actually had someone from the ACC on it. But alas.
Anywho ... here are the 20 potential hosts.
Arizona (Tucson)
Arkansas (Fayetteville)
Charlotte (Gastonia*)
East Carolina (Greenville)
Florida (Gainesville)
Gonzaga (Spokane)
Louisiana Tech (Ruston)
Mississippi State (Starkville)
Notre Dame (South Bend)
Ole Miss (Oxford)
Oregon (Eugene)
Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh)
South Carolina (Columbia)
Southern Miss (Hattiesburg)
Stanford (Stanford)
Tennessee (Knoxville)
Texas (Austin)
Texas Tech (Lubbock)
TCU (Fort Worth)
Vanderbilt (Nashville)
The Seminoles failed to make the Top 20 (the list will be whittled down to 16 actual sites in the coming weeks) and will be forced to go on the road for the entire postseason. Assuming, of course, they make the postseason.
Clearly, FSU put in a competitive bid to host, and the Seminoles could still be a 1 seed even at someone else's regional, but after this weekend they won't play another game at Howser Stadium this year.
Mike Martin, Jr. was worried about this from the beginning. Because the ACC athletic directors voted to have a 50-game season (as opposed to the normal 56), he thought the conference was going to struggle with RPI rankings at the end of the year. Because the conference teams wouldn't be able to play enough non-conference teams to bump up their RPIs and would instead just be beating up on each other. And therefore, if the committee went strictly by RPI numbers to select hosts, then the ACC would be at a disadvantage.
He wasn't wrong.
The ACC only has two potential regional hosts in Pitt and Notre Dame. Meanwhile, the SEC has eight. The SEC also played a full 56-game schedule.
It would appear, looking at the list below, that the committee stuck to its typical plan of using the RPI as the predominant factor in selecting regional hosts.
The 20 hosts are all in the Top 28 of the latest RPI rankings. Florida State is 39th.
Of the eight teams ranked in the Top 28 that aren't potential hosts, four (Fairfield, Old Dominion, Indiana State, Northeastern) were almost certainly left out because of facility requirements. LSU and Oklahoma State likely didn't receive a bid because of poor conference records.
At any rate, we'll see where FSU goes if selected. But nobody would be surprised if the Seminoles end up in the Gainesville Regional. Because it's the NCAA. And that would be the easiest thing for them to do.
Also, it might have helped teams like FSU and N.C. State and Georgia Tech and UVA and Virginia Tech and Clemson and Duke and Louisville (all ranked in the Top 50 in the RPI) if the Selection Committee actually had someone from the ACC on it. But alas.
Anywho ... here are the 20 potential hosts.
Arizona (Tucson)
Arkansas (Fayetteville)
Charlotte (Gastonia*)
East Carolina (Greenville)
Florida (Gainesville)
Gonzaga (Spokane)
Louisiana Tech (Ruston)
Mississippi State (Starkville)
Notre Dame (South Bend)
Ole Miss (Oxford)
Oregon (Eugene)
Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh)
South Carolina (Columbia)
Southern Miss (Hattiesburg)
Stanford (Stanford)
Tennessee (Knoxville)
Texas (Austin)
Texas Tech (Lubbock)
TCU (Fort Worth)
Vanderbilt (Nashville)
