The Selection Sunday viewing guide for Tennessee fans
What 2 Watch 4 in 865
The national guide is linked HERE. There is no fancy intro for this one because there doesn’t need to be, really. Anyway!
If Tennessee is a 1 seed…
Unlikely, but whereas there was a 0.1% chance Friday afternoon it’s probably about a 7% chance now. In the event of a 7% chance!
You’re going to be in Charlotte, then Los Angeles. There is no other choice here available; the other three 1 seed locations are firmly locked in.
You will also almost certainly draw a 16-seed First Four opponent. The other three 1 seeds all play their games on Friday/Sunday, but to fit the bracket appropriately, one 16 seed needs to play on Tuesday, then Thursday. Whoever ends up in the West Region is going to play on Thursday and likely play the winner of something like Montana State/Howard.
Beyond that:
Your ideal 8/9 draw is Boise State/Washington State. Neither one of these teams are inside the KenPom top 35, and neither ranks inside the top 50 in offensive efficiency. I think that’s probably as good as you can reasonably get it.
Your not-ideal 8/9 draw is any combo of Texas/Clemson/Michigan State. You can deal with one of the three, but two of the three locks in a sweatfest for the Round of 32. Texas and MSU are both top-30 KenPom teams. Clemson is 35th, but has a borderline top-25 offense with a center that has attempted 151 free throws this year. Not really what you want.
Your ideal 2-seed and only 2 seed option is Arizona. They wouldn’t put North Carolina here; the only option is Arizona. I don’t think it’s a great matchup for Tennessee, but there are worse outcomes than being in the Elite Eight and playing 2-seed Arizona for a Final Four bid.
Your ideal 3-seed is Baylor. The Bears rank 62nd in defense and give up the 245th-ranked 2PT% on defense. I explored it yesterday, but they are really dependent on hitting threes. In a one-off neutral court environment they could go home early.
Your ideal 4-seed is Kansas. That’s also the only available option, but I don’t believe they can match Baylor and Kansas in the same bracket anyway. I’m pretty firmly of the belief that Kansas is dead, and any team with a six-man rotation is begging for an early exit.
If Tennessee is a 2 seed…
You are probably headed to Charlotte, then Dallas. In terms of appropriate pattern-matching that makes sense it’s the best I can come up with. The seed list would likely go 4 UNC, 5 Tennessee, 6 Arizona, but Arizona makes more regional sense for the West. That gives you Dallas as the next-best option, so Tennessee would draw Houston.
You might actually play a First Four opponent here too. I don’t know if you guys watched any basketball this weekend, but the bubble effing exploded. Whole big thing. For the first time in Tournament history, there will be First Four games involving 10 seeds. It’s not at all unrealistic to think that Tennessee, in the Round of 32, could be playing the 10-seed winner of something like Oklahoma/Northwestern.
Beyond that:
Your ideal 15-seed draw is Long Beach State. I’m going on record as saying I do not want South Dakota State here. That’s not a terrible draw, but their style of play induces a ton of opponent jumpers and variance overall. Long Beach ranks 210th in defense and gives up 15.3 more three-point attempts per 100 possessions than they take. The one thing they do well is rebound, but this is the same team who closed Big West regular season play by losing five games straight. Their starting PF is also 6’5”, and the starting center has fouled out of six games this season.
Your ideal 7/10 seed draw is Nevada/Oklahoma. I mean, no clue how all of this shakes out, but at least here you would either play #36 in KenPom + a team that gets outrebounded game-to-game or an Oklahoma team that’s lost 11 of 18 and is down multiple starters.
Your less-ideal 7/10 seed draw is Gonzaga. Full stop, it’s just Gonzaga. Graham Ike versus Tennessee’s bigs would be fearsome.
Your ideal 3 seed draw is Baylor for reasons already outlined. Houston and Baylor also only played once this year, so they’re allowed to be in the same bracket here if needed.
Your ideal 6/11 seed to beat Baylor is Florida/Drake. Not much more info needed here: Florida is top-20 good and Drake played like a top-25 team against Quad 1/2 opponents this season. Get to the second weekend and roll the dice.
Additional useful info
If it’s plausible at all, you want to be in the final 1 seed’s bracket. I do not trust UNC at all, and Arizona has steadily trended down over the last month.
The dream draw here is probably Final 1 Seed, 3 seed Baylor, 4 seed Kansas. To make it work, you can swap Baylor for Illinois, who has a better offense and a worse defense. They’re roughly the same overall.
The nightmare draw is probably 1 seed UConn, 3 seed Duke, 4 seed Auburn. I do not feel that I need to elaborate on this one.
My personal best guess: Tennessee is a 2 seed in Houston’s region. The 3 seed is Creighton; the 4 seed is maybe Auburn. I think that they may choose to move Auburn up a seed line just to avoid what will otherwise be a huge conundrum at the 4. Currently, all of Kentucky, Auburn, and Alabama are projected 4 seeds, which is nightmarish for attempting to make things fair.