03-30-2015, 02:00 PM
True, it's hard to out perform your seeding if you're always a #1 or #2. Any time you're a #1 seed and don't make the Final Four, you should be disappointed. At least, I have always been disappointed when Stanford didn't make it when they were a #1 seed. But I would be okay if my team lost to the #2 or #4 seed in its region, but it was a brobdingnagian disappointment to not even make it to the 2nd weekend those years we were #1/2s.
I don't know how dated this web site is (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/spo...chart.html), but according to it, the #1 seed historically makes it to the S16 ~88% of the time and the #2 seed should make it ~62% of the time. Montgomery was able to achieve those seeds four times at Stanford but only made it to the S16 one of those years. (http://apps.washingtonpost.com/sports/ap.../stanford/)
Of course, I'd rather have a top seeded team that disappoints than a team that doesn't make the tournament, but it's fairly easy to see why MM would be in the bottom quartile of a list measuring coaches' postseason success relative to their expectations (you could always argue that we were over-seeded because winning in the Pac12 gets more respect than it deserves, but I'll leave that aside.)
I don't know how dated this web site is (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/spo...chart.html), but according to it, the #1 seed historically makes it to the S16 ~88% of the time and the #2 seed should make it ~62% of the time. Montgomery was able to achieve those seeds four times at Stanford but only made it to the S16 one of those years. (http://apps.washingtonpost.com/sports/ap.../stanford/)
Of course, I'd rather have a top seeded team that disappoints than a team that doesn't make the tournament, but it's fairly easy to see why MM would be in the bottom quartile of a list measuring coaches' postseason success relative to their expectations (you could always argue that we were over-seeded because winning in the Pac12 gets more respect than it deserves, but I'll leave that aside.)