For those of you who follow the blog, you know that I hate the fact that after any round, you can go onto ESPN or CBS Sports (or your favorite media site) and see some college basketball “analyst” re-rank the remaining teams.

This typically leads to a lot of people flocking to the site to see who they now think will win. Some of them are pretty tame with their changes but some of them go pretty crazy, in what I suspect is an attempt to get views.

The problem I have with this is two-fold. If you do this correctly, you probably aren’t reseeding anything and so it is a boring article. I open the Round of 32 one, and it says the top 4 seeds are Duke, Arizona, Michigan and Florida – and I get mad that I wasted my time reading it. But this would still be correct. Maybe you can make some small claims in the middle but if you believed those were the top 4 teams (as everyone did), and all 4 of them beat a 16 seed (as everyone did), what makes you believe they still aren’t the top 4 teams.

If you go the other way and get crazy, you then lose all credibility because your comments look ridiculously crazy. So, I got to the point that I don’t look at these. That is until Charlie showed me Avery Johnson’s reseeding the Sweet 16 for CBS. And so, let me go through Avery’s rankings and show exactly why I hate these.

• 16) Michigan State (8th if you just move folks up the S-curve after removing the favorites that lost) – this is what Charlie showed me that got me all riled up to begin with. Charlie said CBS ranked the Spartans as the worse team left and I said there was no way CBS would have said that, you must be looking at some random social media post. But nope Avery Johnson from CBS literally wrote on paper that a team that finished tied for 2nd in the conference with the most remaining teams left in the Sweet 16 was not only worse than all the teams from the other conferences, but it was also worse than Iowa, a team that it beat by 19 in the regular season and finished 5 games ahead of in the conference standings. Avery Johnson has already lost all credibility as someone writing about college basketball with this one statement. But we will continue.
• 15) Arkansas (12th on S-curve) – the SEC tournament champion is now worse than all of the remaining SEC schools, including Texas – a team the Razorbacks beat by 20 just three weeks ago.
• 14) Texas (16th on S-curve) – guess Avery thought so highly about Gonzaga that suddenly an unranked team that was 21-14 at the time was better than two ranked teams with significantly better records.
• 13) Nebraska (10th on S-curve) – If I was confused of how Michigan State could be behind Iowa, then I have to stay confused with the Cornhuskers – although they did split their games with the Hawkeyes. Still they finished the season with 5 more wins and 5 less losses. Then again, to give Avery some credibility back, Iowa did upset Nebraska to make the Elite 8, so I guess where credit is due.
• 12) Purdue (7th on S-curve) – they are still behind Iowa – a team they beat in the regular season by 21. Sure, Iowa is coming off an upset of #4 Florida. Lets totally forget about the fact that Purdue upset #3 Michigan a week ago. To be truthfully honest, I would be comfortable if Avery had ranked MSU, Illinois and Nebraska ahead of the Boilers and said I don’t like how an impressive upset of Michigan makes up for the other teams finishing 2 games ahead in the standings (and MSU and Illinois beating us at Mackey). I am fine making the argument that you think the seeding between the 2, 3 and 4 seeds might be wrong – but they still probably deserve to be seeded better than the 9 seed.
• 11) Iowa (15th on S-curve) – I can’t say anything bad about the Hawkeyes – they had an amazing March to beat Florida and Nebraska (so credit to Avery and the Hawkeyes on that win). I wouldn’t have ranked them here simply because they beat Florida but that is the kind of thing that happens in these articles.
• 10) Tennessee (14th on the S-curve) – I was super impressed with the Volunteers defense and their win over Virginia. Would I have ranked them ahead of the SEC Tournament champion that beat them by 11 in the regular season – No. Would I have ranked them ahead of 4 of the 6 Big 10 schools – No. But they also made it to the Elite 8 so what do I know.
• 9) Illinois (9th on the S-curve). This at least matches the S-curve. Of course, retrospect also lets us know that Illinois is now in the Final Four. But upsets later doesn’t necessarily mean seeding them higher is right.
• 8) UConn (5th on the S-curve) – I am not against making the argument that St John’s deserves to be higher due to the Big East results. Not sure that means that Alabama and Iowa State should have also passed the Huskies based on the first weekend of the tournament – and hindsight certainly says that the Final Four team should have been better.
• 7) St John’s (13th on the S-curve) – I think winning the Big East should have meant more. But the committee also remembered their losses to Alabama, Iowa State, Kentucky and Auburn. So I am not exactly sure where they should have fallen – having them jump UConn, Illinois, Purdue, Nebraska, Michigan State and Arkansas is probably too many teams.
• 6) Alabama (11th on the S-curve). Alabama’s win over Texas Tech was one of the most impressive of the first weekend – they definitely proved me wrong. I don’t know that I let them jump a Purdue team that beat them in November, but to be fair this is one of the teams that showed something in March that was different from how they played in the regular season.
• 5) Michigan (3rd on the S-curve) – ok, lets get back to ridiculousness. The Wolverines went 33-3 up to this point, only losing to Duke, Purdue and Wisconsin. They spent most of the year beating the Big 10 by double digits and 5 other Big 10 teams are still playing. I could see an argument that 6 Big 10 teams made the Sweet 16 so maybe they are better than we thought. I certainly can’t see the argument of the Big 10 has the most teams left so when I reseed them, I will have none of them make the Final Four.
• 4) Iowa State (6th on the S-curve) – so let me get this straight. The Cyclones beat Tennessee State and Kentucky, lose their leading scorer in the process, and suddenly they are a Final Four team above the Big 10 champion who has only lost 3 games all year. If Avery had knocked down the Cyclones because they are no longer at full strength, I could understand it. To move them ahead of Michigan and UConn makes absolutely no sense.
• 3) Arizona (2nd on the S-curve) – I can see a ranker leaving them behind Duke who was the consensus #1 team in the country (although if you were going to be contrarian and put someone other than Duke in the top sport, I could see taking the Wildcats or Wolverines based on Duke having some struggles due to their injuries). But the Wildcats won the Big 12 tournament against Houston, won the conference regular season championship and beat Houston on the road. So not sure how the Cougars jump the Wildcats.
• 2) Duke (1st on the S-curve) – as I mentioned, there were three teams that were on the top all season – Duke, Arizona and Michigan. With Duke being the most banged up, I could see moving one of the other conference champions up. Not sure that I would have kept them ahead of both Arizona and Michigan but then say that Houston was suddenly better.
• 1) Houston (4th on the S-curve) – I will be the first person to admit that after Florida got upset and knowing that the Cougars were playing the South Regional in Houston, I thought the home crowd and their amazing defense would be enough to get them to the Final Four. Hindsight obviously showed the Lunatic was wrong as well as Avery Johnson. But regardless of how I thought the South would end up, I certainly would not have moved up the 2nd best team from the South when the other 3 regional favorites were still alive.

So as I said, Avery Johnson lost all credibility with this article. He ranked Houston as the best team, and they immediately got beat by his 9th best team. To be fair, any reasonable ranking would have likely kept Houston over Illinois. But when you go out on a limb and say that the Cougars are now better than all 3 remaining #1 seeds, you are saying they are going to clearly win against a team that you don’t think is in the top half. He jumped Iowa State over Michigan despite Jefferson getting hurt and then that matchup never even happened since they lost to Tennessee.

If you left things as the seeding list, you would have the 2nd, 3rd, 5th and 9th best teams left. Instead, you have the 3rd, 5th, 8th and 9th best teams – where your re-seeding has taken 3 of the Final 4 teams and said they were worse than before. If you really predict all the upsets this way, you look like a genius. If you go from getting 2 of the Final Four teams from 1 of the Final Four teams while saying things like teams that lost by double digits to another one of the team are now better, you look like you are crazier than the Crazed Lunatic.

But since it seems like it is necessary to have some silly re-seeding, here is the only one that makes sense to me.

• 4) Illinois – the Fighting Illini have had an incredible March. They likely have the best offensive team left in the tournament, and their defense has been much improved in the tournament. But they also have the worst remaining record, losses to 2 of the 3 teams left (UConn and Michigan), and they are the only team that did not start as a 1 seed or beat a 1 seed to get to the Final Four. In fact after the 2 seed Houston, they had to beat a 9 seed, 11 seed and 14 seed. They are a fantastic team that can beat anyone left, but any pre-ranking has to leave them 4th.
• 3) Connecticut – the Huskies look like a team of destiny after Braylon Mullins hit that three-pointer to beat Duke. I would argue they had the toughest path to Indy and they are still here. Beating Duke is a claim that Michigan can not make – as the Wolverines lost to the Blue Devils in February (when Duke was more full strength). However, UConn did lose to Arizona. And Michigan has a conference championship and have won their 4 tournament games by a combined 82 points vs. 32 points for the Huskies. And the Huskies have the same amount of losses as Michigan and Arizona do combined. If the Huskies can beat the #1 team in the country, they can certainly also beat the #2 or #3 team in the country. But if we are seeding on resumes, they still fall behind the Big 12 and Big 10 champions.
• 2) Michigan – there is part of me that wants to make the Wolverines the top team. They are the regular season champions of the toughest conference in college basketball. They went 19-1 in that conference, normally winning by double digits. They won their 4 games by a combined 90 points. Four weeks ago I thought that the Wolverines would be the favorite to win it all. Then Duke beat them and Purdue upset them – they suddenly looked beatable if a team played the perfect game. So, since they were the 3rd seed going in, and the Blue Devils are now gone, they move up to 2nd.
• 1) Arizona – and of course that leaves us with the Wildcats. Their inside game might be matched by no one in college basketball, as my Boilers found out on Saturday. So, they beat UConn so they have that in their favor. When comparing to Michigan, they beat a Purdue team by 15 that Michigan just lost to in the Big 10 championship (although to be fair the Wolverines beat my Boilers by 11 at Mackey). The Wildcats won both their regular season and conference tournament while the Wolverines just won the regular season. And I would argue the Wildcats winning by 82 points in their four rounds is slightly more impressive than the Wolverines since I would argue beating a 2 and 4 seed was a slightly tougher path than a 4 and 6 seed. Basically, Arizona was ranked ahead to start the tournament and winning by 20 points a game doesn’t show they have done anything to change that ranking.

That’s right – if you paid attention to the entire first part of the rant, you should have known that the Lunatic does not believe in re-seeding the teams. The four teams that are left have proven that they can beat anyone.

Would it surprise me if Illinois pulls two upsets with their amazing offense? Absolutely not.

Would it surprise me if UConn keeps winning close games to win the championship? Absolutely not.

Would it surprise me if Michigan ends the Big 10’s drought of 26 years by continuing to blow out teams? Absolutely not.

Would it surprise me if Arizona’s ability to dominate the paint leads them to victory when playing in a football stadium sometimes leads to teams struggling to shoot from the outside? Absolutely not.

The Lunatic clearly has no clue which team will win their last two game to claim the National Championship. And I am not going to try to convince you that I know more by getting cute and changing the way that the NCAA Selection Committee, the AP Poll, or the Coaches Poll ranked the four teams.

As we saw from Duke, being the top seed doesn’t mean you are going to win the National Championship. As we saw from the CBS article, some sportswriter saying that Houston is now the top team doesn’t mean you are going to win the National Championship. And so I can “re-seed” the teams any way I want and it doesn’t matter.

The only truths are that National Championships are won on the court and not on paper through any sportswriter’s analysis or statistician’s models. And that Arizona, Michigan, UConn and Illinois have proven themselves over the last two weeks to demonstrate that they are the ones who deserve to get the chance to win on the court in Indianapolis.

Good luck to the Wildcats, Wolverines, Huskies and Fighting Illini!!!! The Lunatic will not insult or disrespect your teams by creating some new ranking – at this point, all four of you are equal seeds and equal competitors. It will take two perfect games to win a National Championship, and all four of these teams are capable of reaching that one shining moment.