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KU Basketball: Is 2016 The Year A 16-Seed Wins

By Mark Kanter

Mar 12, 2016; Kansas City, MO, USA; The Kansas Jayhawks celebrate with the trophy after the win over the West Virginia Mountaineers 81-71 in the championship game of the Big 12 Conference tournament at Sprint Center. Mandatory Credit: Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports
Mar 12, 2016; Kansas City, MO, USA; The Kansas Jayhawks celebrate with the trophy after the win over the West Virginia Mountaineers 81-71 in the championship game of the Big 12 Conference tournament at Sprint Center. Mandatory Credit: Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports /
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The KU Basketball team will look to avoid being part of something that has never been done: Letting a 16-seed win a game in the NCAA Tournament.

Much of the talk as we enter the start of the NCAA tournament centers around what we don’t know. Sure, Kansas received the overall number one seed and is favored by most to win the tournament, but beyond that, it’s pretty much a toss-up. In fact, according to both experts and oddsmakers, the team second-most likely to win the championship is actually a two seed in Michigan State.

It felt like every week there was a shake-up at the top of the rankings, and here we are in March ready to see the mayhem unravel once and for all. Which got me thinking…with all this parity and lack of dominant forces at the top of the mix, is this the year we finally see a 16 seed take down a number one?

Out of curiosity, I decided to see how many degrees of separation there were from the top of the league to the bottom.

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Starting with KU Basketball, the number one team in both the league’s rankings and RPI, I looked to see what their worst loss was in terms of the opposition’s RPI. From there I continued on, doing the same for each team until hitting rock bottom.

Guess how many teams I had to go through to get there? A dozen? Ten? Try four. Here’s how it breaks down:

Kansas lost to Oklahoma State (RPI: 172), who had all of three wins in the Big 12 this year. It might come as no surprise then that Oklahoma State had some poor loses of their own, one of which was to a Missouri State team with an RPI of 235. In turn, they lost to a pitiful Southeast Missouri State team who went 3-24 on the year (RPI: 342).

Considering there are only 351 teams ranked in Division 1 and Southeast Missouri State didn’t play anyone worst than themselves, that’s where it ends. Four teams, top to bottom. Wow.

Last year if we tried to do this we’d be done before we even began, due to Kentucky’s undefeated regular season. Their dominance certainly provided a whole different perspective going into the tournament.

And look, this year it’s not even unique to Kansas.

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If we take Oregon, second in RPI, we can go to UNLV, Air Force, and onto San Diego State to get into the 300s (SDSU is 301).

For Virginia it’s even more exciting, moving from Virginia Tech to Alabama State to Grambling State, who ranks 350 out of 351 Division 1 teams. In fact, Virginia might be the most likely of number one seeds to go down.

During the regular season they beat Wake Forest (RPI: 159) by just one point; considering Hampton has an RPI of 154, I’m willing to bet much stranger things have happened.

The KU Basketball team doesn’t want any part of this chuck of basketball history. Whichever team winds up being the first to drop a game to a 16-seed, is never going to escape the discussions that come with that.

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We know it’s going to be a crazy couple of weeks. At this point, we just don’t know how crazy. At some point the ultimate upset is going to happen, and the reality is, this could finally be the year.

So what do you think KU Basketball fans and fans of the NCAA Tournament in general? Is 2016 the year of the 16 seed? Let us know your thoughts in the comments’ section below.

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