Math be damned, bring it on Final Four

Last week I linked to a post over at the FiveThirtyEight blog talking about the strange mathematics of the NCAA tournament, and why it's bad to be an 8 seed (and ironically better to be an 11 seed).

Butler seemed not to care about any of that, as last year's runner-up plowed right through their bracket's 1 seed (Pittsburgh) and 2 seed (Florida) to return to the Final Four, becoming the first 8 seed to make it to the promised land since 2000 (when two 8s managed the feat).

Of course, 11 seed Virginia Commonwealth seemed to back up the study's thesis with its advance to the Final Four, but the study didn't exactly account for VCU's play-in game, which made VCU the first team to ever require 5 tournament wins in order to reach the national semis--the math on that, clearly, is worse than drawing an 8 seed or a 9 seed.

So take your pick--neither of these teams is mathematically supposed to be here, but now one of them is guaranteed to play for the title. For Butler, that would be familiar territory, for VCU--not so much. This year's Final Four should be historically fun to watch, and it's already etched its name in the record books. Since the tournament's expansion beyond its old 32-team format, this year's quartet marks the first time that no 1 seeds or 2 seeds were present, and the combined seeds of the four participants (3+4+8+11=26) are the highest in history, blowing out the previous high from 2000 (1+5+8+8=22).

In summary, I've never been more excited to have been made to look foolish; this is why I love sports. None of this was supposed to be possible, and yet here we are. (Also, in a year where I successfully picked only 3 of the Elite 8 and 1 of the Final Four, I somehow still have a chance to finish in the money in both of my bracket pools--go figure.)

As one final note before we put college basketball to bed for a few days, note that if this was football, the National Championship would be played in late April between Ohio State and Kansas, and VCU-Butler would be played on a blue field in Idaho with nobody watching. Yeah, basketball wins. Take a hike, BCS.