Thoughts (and numbers) on Virginia’s five NCAA bound teams
Some crazy surprises / disappointments last night during Selection Sunday. VT is out, VCU is in. Five teams from Virginia are in, including two from Richmond. That makes us pretty awesome.
Whoa. Some crazy surprises / disappointments last night during Selection Sunday. My poor, poor Hokies were left out AGAIN. But, seemingly against all odds, the Rams are in?! UP IS DOWN LEFT IS RIGHT. But, overall, good news for college sports in our fair Commonwealth.
Virginia is sending five teams to the NCAA tournament: George Mason, Old Dominion, Richmond, Hampton, and VCU. No other state (or commonwealth!) could top our total, although two did tie: California* and Pennsylvania**. Solid work Commonwealth.
As I was pulling this list, I wondered how many cities could boast two NCAA bound teams? It turns out four — with an asterisk (well two asterisks):
- Los Angeles: 7 UCLA • 11 USC
- Philadelphia: 7 Temple • 9 Villanova
- Nashville: 5 Vanderbilt • 13 Belmont
- Richmond: 11 VCU • 12 Richmond
Here’s the asterisk. Do we consider the 757 and NOVA “cities?” If so we add two to the list:
- 757: 9 Old Dominion • 16 Hamption
- NOVA: 6 Georgetown • 8 George Mason
Notice that a full fifty percent of the cities sending multiple teams to the tournament are in Virginia (let’s just call DC part of Virginia to make things easier)! Of these cities Richmond is the smallest***. Which, I think, easily makes us the most kickass basketball town per capita in the United States. Think about it.
Another interesting question that came up on twitter last night: of these twelve teams which were at-large bids vs. automatic bids? How does that break down by city? Actually, the three largest cities — L.A., NOVA, and Philly — all had two at-large teams. While, the three smallest cities — the 757, Nashville, and Richmond — all had one at-large and one automatic team. INTERESTING.
Now that we’ve gotten all those numbers behind us, here’s the schedule (game times have yet to be announced — we’ll update this when they are) for all five teams in Virginia. You won’t have to wait too long for the action since VCU plays in one of the “First Four” games on Wednesday.
VCU! Go Rams Go!
11 VCU v. 11 USC
- Dayton
- 3/16, Wednesday • 9pm • truTV
9 Old Dominon v. 8 Butler
- Washington, DC
- 3/17, Thursday • 12.40pm • truTV
12 Richmond v. 5 Vanderbilt
- Denver
- 3/17, Thursday • 4.10pm • TBS
8 George Mason v. 9 Villanova
- Cleveland
- 3/18, Friday • 2.10pm • TNT
16 Hampton v. 1 Duke
- Charlotte
- 3/18, Friday • 3.10pm • truTV
* USC, San Diego State, UCLA, UC-Santa Barbara
** Villanova, Temple, Bucknell, Penn State, Pittsburg
*** Los Angeles: 15.3M, Philadelphia: 5.8M, NOVA/Washington DC: 5.4M, Nashivllle: 1.7M, 757: 1.7M, Richmond: 1.2M. The numbers for NOVA and the 757 are best guess, because, honestly, no one knows where they begin or end. They’re like a terrifying MIASMA.
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Numbers + Sports = Thank you.
Interesting analysis. Some thoughts… should ‘kick-ass-ness’ be determined by a different metric than population? Perhaps some sort of kick-ass-ness algorithm should be developed that accounts for seeding. (For instance, if you add the seeds of the cities with 2 teams in the field, the lowest total goes to NOVA; 14). Also, this analysis could continue after the tournament gets underway, with weighting to those teams who prevail beyond first round, second round, etc.
Also, if we’re going to consider ‘regions’ (like NOVA or the 757), it seems only fair to include Durham-Chapel Hill (the same area code I assume). In which case, with #1 Duke and #2 UNC, they could make an argument for ‘supreme kick-ass-ness.’ Personally, I think they should be disqualified just because Duke is involved.
(Another potential region is the NYC metro area which qualified St. John’s and St. Peter’s.)
@EB I think if it were up to me (which maybe it should be since I wrote the dang thing) I’d disallow regions. Like, I said, its a confusing MIASMA up (and over) there with no sort of local identity.
I do, however, like throwing population in there because it is interesting that we are such a small (non-college) town with two great basketball programs. You’d think the size of the city would limit both the number of programs and the size of the talent pool.
Speaking of, each team from Richmond has two players on their roster from the area.
nice work Catrow. I second @EB’s idea of lengthening this competition to future rounds. This is big.
I’m seeing this VCU/USC game at 9pm on TruTV, where did you get your 7pm from?
@Tommy You are correct sir, I’ve updated the time. I was using, perhaps foolishly, Wikipedia.
Pardon my deep tv ignorance – is TruTV something on regularish cable?
@john It was on FiOS 183/683 last night.