This week's bracket dovetails nicely with a story in this morning's Inquirer that I forgot to mention: why the A-10 is almost surely a one-bid conference this season, with Xavier having the only shot at an at-large slot.
It so happens that the Musketeers get the auto bid in this week's field. If you care enough, they have an 11-seed in the East (Meadowlands) regional and a game against Arizona in Lexington.
As for the local delegation, Villanova gets the dreaded 8-seed and a date with Stanford in Chicago as part of the Midwest (St. Louis) regional. Joe Lunardi really likes the Wildcats, writing that "this is the week Villanova turns its RPI into gold." A win over Georgetown on Saturday would move them even higher.
A game against the Cardinal shouldn't be too much of a challenge for the Wildcats, as Stanford is 163rd nationally in offensive efficiency, 178th in 3-point percentage and 174th in 2-point percentage. But they're good on defense: Though they're 86th in defensive efficiency, they're also 57th in 3-point defense and 30th in 2-point defense.
The winner of that game gets Wisconsin. The Badgers are really (really) good, but 'Nova-Wisconsin would be an outstanding game. It would play to Villanova's preferred style, too, because Wisconsin is 285th in Division I in the ratio of threes to all field goal attempts.
Penn is back in the field as a 14-seed and has to head out to Sacramento to play Washington State, also in the St. Louis regional. Any 3-seed would be a huge challenge for the Quakers, but the Cougars are fourth-best in the country in the ratio of assists to field goals allowed, which is one of the focal points of Penn's offense. Overall, Wazzu is 12th in defensive efficiency and 21st in effective field goal percentage allowed, but only 86th in offensive efficiency -- nine spots lower than Penn.
I'm rather surprised by what Lunardi did to Drexel this week. Not because the Dragons are excluded, but because they fell from being the fourth team out to being the first team in the "considered" category, which translates to being the ninth team out. If you have an ESPN.com Insider subscription, click here to read the full Rundown. I thought that the Hofstra win would move Drexel closer to being in the field, but apparently it hasn't. And Joe certainly knows what he's doing, so I have to take his word for it.
