7 types of Tourney Teams

The NCAA tournament is hyped for the teams which live to become legendary whether that be through a title, an appearance, or a Cinderella run.  Many people look at the tournament as a mockery of competition where only ten or so teams actually have the opportunity to win the title, but honestly whilst the champion is the one who is remembered forever, teams all over have goals which make the tournament a special time of year.  Some teams can make an impact and be a team which completely alters the tournament...even before it begins.


#6 The Favorites:
2010 examples: Kansas, Duke, West Virginia
We can pretty much make this list up easily.  A 1 or 2 seed takes up most of these roles, but sometimes a 3 seed can be a favorite to dance deep...and win.  An example of that would be Stanford in 2008 when they had the Lopez twins and were looked at as a top tier title team.  These are the teams whose years are complete failures should they not breech the elite eight and by the time this happens every fan feels their respective favorite has become the best team around and should they fail to bring home the championship they are failures.  Everything revolves around that championship and getting to put a net around your neck and hold up a shiny trophy.

Or for the bold, putting the net around the trophy

#5 The At-Large Bid:
2010 examples: Tennessee, Michigan State, Clemson
This seems a little confusing since at-large bids can be used to describe a plethora of teams, but it is really simple once I tell you how it is supposed to work.

Similarly

A team which gets the Macier Ross billing of an At-Large Bid is a team which grabs a 4-8 seed and some 3 seeds (or nines, I mean it is relatively wide open, but let's just keep it 4-8) and does not win its conference tournament (hence "at-large bid").  These teams can be counted on to do one thing, get upset in the early rounds.  We love our At-larges because they are the ones who lose to our lower seeded teams, I mean without them March Madness would be less part mad and more part March (which honestly no one wants).  The only other reason we appreciate these At-Large teams is they make games against the favorites and can take them down.  Despite my cynical comments about how worthless these teams end up being, it should be mentioned they are usually top 32 teams in the country and deserve recognition since they make the tournament based only on their solid body of work in the regular season and failures in the conference tournament.

 #4 The Cinderellas
2010 examples: St. Mary's, Washington, Butler
Some people will look at this and think "Butler was a five seed?" and to that I say, they are from the Horizon League and thus making the NCAA Championship Game is worthy of earning the title, "Cinderella".  Beyond this, their race ratio was way under that of the average NCAA tournament and I have just decided to say last season's NCAA title game had the most white men in it since basketball discovered black dominance in the sport...and that's not racist, it's a compliment, and a fact.  A Cinderella is a team seeded around 9-14 who manages to make a run into the Sweet Sixteen or beyond in the tournament because it usually involves beating two teams ranked higher...including one ranked significantly higher.  These are the teams who beat up on the formerly mentioned At-Large Bids and then slide by a #'s 1-5 seed in the second round to saunter into the Sweet Sixteen.  However, this type of tourney team only qualifies if they make a run.  What happens if the don't?


#3 The Punching Bags
2010 examples (anyone seeded 15, or 16, among others)
These teams are often Conference champions from mid-majors or even conference which hardly deserve such recognition such as the Big Sky.

Worth the 96-49 loss?  Probably

 Many of these teams will lose by more than 20 points and honestly are just here because the NCAA decided they wanted to give everyone a reason to play during the regular season and try in the conference tournament...unlike the BCS

What's a Fiesta Bowl?...Sugar? Rose? Orange?...they sound unimportant.

#3 The Loser of the Play-In Game
2010 Example: Winthrop
I am well aware that only one team can gain this role each year, but doesn't that make it the second most prestigious of the teams?  I mean only the National Champion can claim such a uniqueness; however, it would be a drastic exaggeration to say they should be proud, I mean this makes them literally the 65th team and the least favorite of every NIT team.  You will forever be called "worthless" and "Bane of March Madness".  It is because of teams like you we don't get to have 65 teams worthy of a tourney bid,  but stay stalwart, my lovely #16...ummm, #17 seed.  You will forever be remembered as the team randomly picked by many because your game rarely carries weight in the picking of a bracket anyway, but ye of little meaning have something no other tournament team can claim...You never entered the body of the bracket.

#2 The Bubble Team (The Crawler):
2010 example (Utah State, Missouri, Florida)
The ones everyone watches before the tourney begins.  These are the ones who limp into the tournament (although I prefer crawl) because they have to rely on the mercy of the tournament committee to pick them over another team which the committee determines isn't quite as worthy.  The Crawlers have the most to prove because they are picked by the committee because they feel these teams could make a difference in the tournament or else they would've selected another team which had as good or maybe even a better resume.  The pressure is on to win at least the first game of the tournament.  Anything else makes everyone wonder, "What if they had taken these guys, or those guys, or another team from the Big Sky?".  I love the bubble teams because they are the mysteries, the teams which are hard to figure if you should pick them.  They usually are the 7-10 teams and have to play other Crawlers in the first round, making a good 'ol fashion coin toss an effective method.  Finally, these teams hate our #1's.
 
#1 The Bid Stealer:
2010 example (New Mexico State)
My favorite and the most important teams in all of the NCAA tournament.  These bid stealers change the way a the bracket it put together.  They literally steal a bid from an At-Large or Hobbler, hence the name.  A bid stealer wins their conference tournament (usually a mid-major, but recall Georgia in 2008 from the SEC) when they would usually have absolutely no business being in the NCAA tournament.  Everyone loves these teams because they typify the true tenacity and heart it takes to succeed in March in the NCAA.  They usually don't make a difference come tournament time, but there is no other team which can make an impact before the shindig gets going.  Only a bid-stealer can look a Bubble Team in the eye and say, "You aren't making the tournament".  Everyone loves these guys, they are the best.

I'm still gonna have to take the Dukies and Coach K!