The third-seeded Wisconsin Badgers will travel to Denver for the NCAA tournament’s opening round. What happened when it appeared that the Badgers would play in Milwaukee in the first round?
It came down to a single position on the list of teams ranked 1–68 by the NCAA tournament committee. The Badgers would have stayed close to home and played on Friday if they had pushed past Kentucky. Rather, it’s a Thursday tip-off and a trip out West.
These venues host NCAA tournament games in the first and second rounds.
There are games in Lexington, Kentucky; Wichita, Kansas; Providence, Rhode Island; Seattle, Denver, Cleveland, and Raleigh, North Carolina, in addition to Milwaukee.
The committee can assign teams to geographically convenient sites by using the pod system.
The Badgers were placed No. 12 on the NCAA’s list of all teams in the field, which is ranked 1–68.
It proceeded as follows: the teams are given the most hospitable geographic location in sequence.
The nearest regional location to Auburn, Lexington, was selected as the location for No. 1 Auburn. The No. 8 and No. 9 teams in the same section of the bracket as Auburn are accompanied by the No. 16 seed. In this instance, the winner between Saint Francis and Alabama State will get the No. 16 seed. The other two seeds that are going to Lexington are Creighton and Louisville.
Raleigh was assigned to Duke, the second-ranked team on the list. Along for the voyage are No. 8 seed Mississippi State and No. 9 seed Baylor, as well as the winner between American and Mount St. Mary’s.
Houston, the third-ranked squad overall, was on its way to Wichita.
Florida, the fourth-ranked team overall, was on its way to Raleigh. Due to the assignment of two “pods” (Duke and Florida) to the site, Raleigh is currently unable to accommodate any additional teams.
Tennessee, the No. 5 team, also filled Lexington after travelling there. Tennessee, the top-seeded No. 2 seed, faces Wofford, ranked No. 15, and the 7-10 matchup with Utah State at UCLA in that section of the bracket.
Cleveland is selected by Alabama, the sixth-ranked team. Alabama is routed to the Midwestern location since Tuscaloosa is marginally closer to Cleveland than Wichita and the nearby Lexington and Raleigh destinations are already full.
A second pod is added to Cleveland when Michigan State, the No. 7 team, visits.
Providence is a perfect fit for St. John’s, the No. 8 team.
That spot is occupied by two pods when Texas Tech, the No. 9 team, plays Wichita.
Milwaukee plays Iowa State, ranked tenth.
The No. 11 team, Kentucky, must go to Milwaukee as it cannot visit Lexington, the host institution (although the venue is already full), or Cleveland, which hosts Michigan State and Alabama. The Milwaukee location is currently reserved.
Wisconsin, the No. 12 team, is out of luck because they are one slot away from a date in Milwaukee. Rather, the squad is sent to Denver, which is only 15 miles closer to Milwaukee than Providence and the next closest location.
Was Kentucky truly superior to Wisconsin?
The committee examines each item on the list using a procedure known as “scrubbing” and contrasts teams that are next to one another. At some point, the committee decided it had the right ranking after actively comparing Kentucky and Wisconsin head-to-head.
Both the Torvik and KenPom rankings place Wisconsin higher than Kentucky, but both are mostly predictive measures rather than necessarily resume-based assessments. Wisconsin had an 8-7 record in Quad 1, a 10-1 record in Quad 2, and an 8-0 record in Quad 3 and Quad 4. Kentucky had a 1-1 record in Quad 2, an 11-10 record in Quad 1, and a 10-0 record in Quads 3 and 4.
The game against Penn State in the regular-season finale was Wisconsin’s only defeat in Quad 2. Kentucky played Arkansas and former coach John Calipari at home.
It must have been a near miss.
