As we were waiting for the pre-Northwestern press conference Tuesday evening, the media started debating on the different first and second round possibilities for IU.
Back in 2002, the NCAA tournament adopted a pod system in an effort to try and keep the top 4 seeds in each bracket as close to home as possible in the tournament's first week of games.
There are eight different first round sites, which means eight teams will be sent to each site. Basically each site hosts two sets of first and second round games.
IU fans will want the Hoosiers to obviously keep on winning in order to keep their chances of a top-four seed alive and therefore have a great chance to be placed in a site closer to Bloomington.
Follow the jump for my breakdown of how I would fill out the pod system for the top 4 seeds in each bracket (16 teams total).
In ESPN Joe Lunardi's latest mock bracket he has the top 4 seeds as followed:
1 seeds: Syracuse, Kentucky, Kansas, Missouri
2 seeds: Duke, Ohio State, North Carolina, Michigan State
3 seeds: Baylor, Marquette, UNLV, Georgetown
4 seeds: Indiana, Wisconsin, Michigan, Louisville
The 8 different first/second round sites are as followed:
Albuquerque, Portland, Omaha, Nashville, Louisville, Columbus, Pittsburgh, Greensboro
If I was making up the bracket the most sense to me would be to place the teams in the following places:
Albuqerque-UNLV and Baylor
Portland-Michigan and Louisville
Omaha-Kansas and Missouri
Nashville-Indiana and Marquette
Louisville-Kentucky and Georgetown
Columbus-Michigan State and Wisconsin
Pittsburgh-Syracuse and Ohio State (can't play on their home floor in Columbus)
Greensboro-Duke and North Carolina
Thoughts: This is one of the hardest parts of the selection committee and there is no easy way to appease the top 16 teams. This year in particular is very difficult because there is only one true 'Western' team in the top 16 in UNLV (who will drop after losing to TCU on Tuesday night). Since Michigan and Louisville appear to be the bottom two 4 seeds I decided to put them out in Portland.
In looking at last year's bracket Louisville and Wisconsin (two 4 seeds) were sent out West because of the lack of teams out there in the top 16.
