A major plot point in last year’s best TV show unexpectedly involved college basketball. In Season 2 of FX’s “The Bear,” ambitious young chef Sydney (played by Ayo Edebiri) is given a copy of Mike Krzyzewski’s motivational book “Leading With the Heart.” She carries it everywhere and uses the book’s wisdom as she prepares to lead the kitchen staff at a new restaurant in Chicago, which happens to be Coach K’s hometown. The incredible episode 7, “Forks,” begins with an interview with Coach K about teamwork intercut with scenes of Sydney and the crew preparing for the restaurant’s grand opening.
OK, it’s a little weird that other characters’ immediate association with Krzyzewski is Duke’s epic 2001 comeback against Maryland and not, say, his five national titles with the Blue Devils. (We are available for consultation on your college hoops storylines, Hollywood.) But it’s still a great show and one that Coach K — who wasn’t aware he was a part of Season 2 until after it aired — now heartily endorses. “The Bear” won three Golden Globes last Sunday, including for best comedy, and should take home more prizes on Monday night at the 75th Emmy Awards.
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So, in honor of Carmy, Sydney, Richie, Marcus and the rest of the gang, let’s turn the tables and use references from “The Bear” as we cook up this week’s notable Bracket Watch developments. After all, the only thing nearly as frenetic as a restaurant kitchen is the chaos menu of this college basketball season:
“Go, Devils.” A waiter says this to Sydney when he notices her reading Coach K’s book, from which he can also quote from memory, curiously leaving out the “Blue” in Blue Devils. (Seriously, for a small fee we will serve as your basketball advisor.) Of course, we had to start with Duke, which debuted as a No. 5 seed in our first mock field and is now on the No. 3 line. Coach K’s former team hasn’t beaten anyone of note in the new year and owns just two wins over likely tournament teams (Michigan State and Baylor, on neutral courts). But the, um, Devils have won seven straight with excellent efficiency numbers, moving to No. 13 in NET, No. 7 in KenPom and fifth in BPI. Plus, one might say the selection committee has shown a real appetite for rewarding this program whenever possible.
“Yes, chef!” That’s our response to perhaps incredulous Kansas fans seeing the Jayhawks bumped down to a No. 2 seed, behind a UConn team that they beat in Allen Fieldhouse. Bill Self’s squad undoubtedly has some of the best wins in the country (Kentucky and Tennessee at neutral sites, plus the one over the Huskies). But at 16th in the NET, 19th in KenPom and 18th in BPI, Kansas simply lacks the statistical profile of a No. 1 seed. Consider that the lowest-ranked NET team to earn a No. 1 seed since the metric began was … last year’s Jayhawks, who were ninth on Selection Sunday.
And, yes, chef, KU’s resume is much stronger than Houston’s, but the Cougars — even after Tuesday’s loss at Iowa State — remain No. 1 in every major computer ranking. We saw a similar situation play out last year when Kansas set a record for Quad 1 wins but Houston dominated the computer rankings out of a weak AAC. The committee seeded the Cougars No. 2 overall and the Jayhawks third.
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All the road upsets this week made us even more convinced that Arizona — whose loss at Stanford no longer feels like such an outlier — belongs on the top line. The Wildcats are the No. 2 overall seed this week behind Purdue, whose road loss at Nebraska was just par for the course this week. Bear Down, indeed.
“I wear suits now.” For the past couple of weeks, perhaps to the confusion of some, we declined to consider any teams that lacked a win in Quads 1 or 2 for at-large bids. The reasoning: We’re seeding the field as if today is Selection Sunday, based on results to this point, and beating up on cupcakes is a foolproof way of getting ignored by the committee. In the last week, several notable teams finally got those upper-quadrant check marks, including Texas, Texas Tech, TCU and Cincinnati. But talk about strange currencies; Texas Tech got its Q1 win at Texas, which got its Q1 win at Cincinnati, which got its Q1 win at mostly-untested BYU. The commonality here, of course, is that all those teams play in the circular firing squad that is the Big 12.
So welcome into consideration, fellas. You don’t all get to be front of house, though. We have Cincinnati — which owns the best road win of the bunch, statistically speaking — in the field along with Texas, while Texas Tech and TCU are in the First Four out. Tough calls. But Texas has played a slightly better schedule than the other two, and the Horned Frogs’ only win outside the last two quads was at home (against Oklahoma on Wednesday). If only that questionable flagrant foul call at Kansas had gone the other way for TCU …
Granted, Texas Tech has the better team sheet and won in Austin, so this may seem nonsensical. Yet we believe Texas is a different and much-improved team with a healthy Dylan Disu, who scored 33 points in his first start of the season in that win at Cincinnati. Call us all the names you want, Red Raiders fans, we can take it. After all, we’re not like this because we’re in Van Halen; we’re in Van Halen because we’re like this.
Speaking of (original) beef: Bring your gripes and questions to the comments section, and we’ll answer as many as we can. Heard!
| First Four Out | Next Four Out | Last Four In | Last Four Byes |
|---|---|---|---|
Texas Tech | Colorado | Miami | Cincinnati |
TCU | Butler | Ole Miss | Oregon |
Wake Forest | Boise State | Virginia Tech | Providence |
Virginia | Drake | Texas | Ohio State |
Big 12 | 8 |
SEC | 8 |
Big East | 7 |
Big Ten | 7 |
ACC | 5 |
Mountain West | 4 |
Pac-12 | 3 |
AAC | 2 |
1 | Purdue | AQ |
2 | Arizona | AQ |
3 | Houston | AQ |
4 | UConn | AQ |
5 | Kansas | |
6 | Kentucky | AQ |
7 | North Carolina | AQ |
8 | Tennesssee | |
9 | Wisconsin | |
10 | Duke | |
11 | Baylor | |
12 | Marquette | |
13 | Auburn | |
14 | Illinois | |
15 | Memphis | AQ |
16 | Creighton | |
17 | Oklahoma | |
18 | Colorado State | AQ |
19 | San Diego State | |
20 | Clemson | |
21 | BYU | |
22 | Dayton | AQ |
23 | Villanova | |
24 | Florida Atlantic | |
25 | Alabama | |
26 | Iowa State | |
27 | Nevada | |
28 | Utah State | |
29 | Utah | |
30 | St. John's | |
31 | Texas A&M | |
32 | Nebraska | |
33 | Mississippi State | |
34 | Northwestern | |
35 | Grand Canyon | AQ |
36 | Michigan State | |
37 | Seton Hall | |
38 | South Carolina | |
39 | Gonzaga | AQ |
40 | Cincinnati | |
41 | Oregon | |
42 | Providence | |
43 | Ohio State | |
44 | Princeton | AQ |
45 | Miami | |
46 | Ole Miss | |
47 | Virginia Tech | |
48 | Texas | |
49 | James Madison | AQ |
50 | Indiana State | AQ |
51 | McNeese State | AQ |
52 | UC Irvine | AQ |
53 | Akron | AQ |
54 | Weber State | AQ |
55 | Charleston | AQ |
56 | Morehead State | AQ |
57 | Samford | AQ |
58 | High Point | AQ |
59 | UMass Lowell | AQ |
60 | Purdue Fort Wayne | AQ |
61 | Colgate | AQ |
62 | Lipscomb | AQ |
63 | Jacksonville State | AQ |
64 | South Dakota State | AQ |
65 | Saint Peter's | AQ |
66 | Southern | AQ |
67 | Norfolk State | AQ |
68 | Merrimack | AQ |
(Photo of Jeremy Roach: Michael Caterina / AP)