The basketball gods have had us dance around it for the last few weeks, and here it is: No. 14 Penn vs. No. 3 Georgetown in Winston-Salem as part of the St. Louis regional. I've written already about how good and how efficient Georgetown is, so no need to repeat it. Suffice to say that for as much fun as it would be for Penn fans to go against John Thompson III again, there's no way the Quakers are winning this matchup.
It also shows just how badly Penn needs to win out. Joe Lunardi writes that the Hoyas could move up to a 2-seed if they keep winning, but if they do, one of Kansas, Ohio State, Texas A&M and (most likely) Pittsburgh would fall a notch. As good as Georgetown is, those other teams would be even harder to beat. The other 3-seeds are Memphis, Washington State and Southern Illinois, which wouldn't be too much easier.
The 4-seeds, however, are Boston College, Nevada, Butler and Air Force. BC would probably do unto Penn as it did in 2005 (i.e., win by 20 on athleticism alone), but Penn could take the other three teams.
To give you a more statistical idea, Southern Illinois' actual RPI number (as opposed to rank) is 0.6476. Air Force's is 0.6258, Nevada's is 0.6177, BC's is 0.6072 and Butler's is .6065. That is a huge difference.
The winner would get either Sean Singletary's Virginia or Winthrop, who Dick Jerardi says will win their first-round game no matter who it plays.
Villanova stays at an 8-seed against No. 9 Maryland in New Orleans. That would be quite a scene on Bourbon Street. It would also be a game Villanova should win, because I doubt the high-speed Terrapins (13th-highest tempo in Division I) would be able to deal with the Wildcats' defense.
But Maryland's defense is very good -- the fourth-most efficient in the country, in fact. So this would probably be a pretty low-scoring game, something with which the Wildcats are more than experienced enough to handle. The winner would get No. 1 Florida, giving Villanova a shot at revenge against the team that knocked them out last season.
Drexel falls from being the ninth team out of the field to being the tenth team out, which is not a pleasant thought. Their need to get to the finals of the CAA Tournament goes up each day as other bubble teams win.
