Is it idle coincidence, or a real thing, that certain teams do better in the NCAA Tournament when sent to a specific region or a specific set of sites?
The Duke Blue Devils won the 1992 and 2001 college basketball national championships by following the same paths — literally — in terms of the cities they played in and traveled do along the way.
In 1992 and 2001, Duke played its opening-weekend NCAA Tournament games in Greensboro, North Carolina. It played its regional games in Philadelphia. It played the Final Four — and won it — in Minneapolis and the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome.
The Connecticut Huskies made the 1999 Final Four from the West Region and then won the national title. They made the 2004 Final Four from the West Region and then won the national title. They made the 2009 Final Four from the West. They made the 2011 Final Four from the West and won the national championship. They made the 2014 Final Four from the East, but only because they somehow got to play in Madison Square Garden — a roaring home-court advantage — in the East Regional despite being a No. 7 seed.
For Connecticut, going West really was best.
As Digger Phelps would say on Selection Sunday, “Go to the West and take care of the rest.”
This has been true for Wisconsin basketball in the NCAA Tournament.
The Badgers’ three Final Fours this century — 2000, 2014 and 2015 — all came out of the West Region, in Albuquerque, Anaheim, and Los Angeles. Skeptics will say that Wisconsin had a better team in 2014 and 2015, which is true enough, but the Badgers could have been a 2 seed in another region and found a less hospitable draw. Playing Arizona in two regional finals those years was favorable, and that was a product of playing in the West.
Also realize this: Because there are far more high-end programs in the Eastern time zone, the West is often the “dumping ground” for Eastern or Central time zone teams which weren’t good enough to be the No. 1 seed in their own geographic regions. West Regions can and do have weaker No. 1 seeds and weaker draws than other regions.
A few examples among many: Missouri being a relatively weak 1 seed in the West in the 1994 NCAA Tournament; Purdue being the same in 1996; Cincinnati being the same in 2002.
Wisconsin’s Final Four runs coming from the West might seem like an accident.
My simple word of counsel: Don’t be so sure.