Quote Originally Posted by Walkerhill View Post
We need to be thinking about the second game instead of the first. If you are a 6 you almost always will play a legit top 10 team to make the sweet 16, probably at a regional pod that favors them. As a 4/5 you get a second tier team and have more likelihood of playing on a favorable or neutral court.

To me, losing in the second round is no better than the first. No one remembers who teams 16-32 were. You make the sweet 16 you get a signature program achievement and you get a week of press heading into second weekend.
To me winning a game in the tournament is a hell of a lot better than winning no games in the tournament. I could care less what other people remember. I care about what the experience is like for me and getting to play 2 tournament games would be great. Sweet 16 is obviously better, but 0 wins and 1 win are not equivalent.

Here's some fun stats. From 2012-2022 (last 10 years not counting last year... I don't have those stats added in yet.) 6 seeds beat 11 seeds only 47.5% of the time. 5s beat 12s 57.5% of the time. both 5s and 6s lose a lot of 1st round games, but 6's have performed pretty bad in recent history. 5 seeds beat 4 seeds only 33.3% of the time. 6 seeds beat 3 seeds only 18.8% of the time. So you're right, that a 6 seed is going to have a very tough road, 5 seeds are pretty tough too. Here's the fun part though... 7 seeds have beaten beat 10 seeds 61.5% of the time and they have beaten 2 seeds 42.9% of the time. It's very strange, but 7 seeds have greatly outperformed 6s and 5s in the first and second round while playing what should be tougher seeds in both rounds. Take that as you will.