{"id":14808,"date":"2017-02-27T10:36:09","date_gmt":"2017-02-27T15:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/?p=14808"},"modified":"2017-06-26T10:53:38","modified_gmt":"2017-06-26T15:53:38","slug":"race-to-the-final-four","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/tartan-news\/2017\/02\/27\/race-to-the-final-four\/","title":{"rendered":"Race to the Final Four"},"content":{"rendered":"

March Madness is on its way and the race to the Final Four is heating up. <\/span><\/p>\n

Still undefeated Gonzaga remains the number one team in the nation and doesn\u2019t seem to be slowing down. They haven\u2019t had a game within a ten-point margin since the new year. <\/span><\/p>\n

Despite the Bulldog\u2019s domination, the competition is far from over. Their conference, the West Coast Conference, is far from the best in the nation. This means the competition Gonzaga is facing is much lower than many of their competitors. <\/span><\/p>\n

This is where the nation comes to face the most dominant conference, the Atlantic Coast Conference(ACC). With 11 of its 15 teams either ranked or receiving votes, the ACC is predicted to have 9 teams make the tournament. <\/span><\/p>\n

The competition is fierce, and during conference play, it seems like ACC teams have a big game every week. This will help their preparation for tournament play. <\/span><\/p>\n

The NCAA Basketball Tournament consists of 68 teams. Of these 68 spots, 32 of them are awarded to the winners of specific conference tournaments. This leaves 34 available for teams who don\u2019t win their conference championship. With so many good teams in packed into one conference, like the ACC or Big 10, it is becoming increasingly difficult to compete for those limited spots. <\/span><\/p>\n

This puts a particular burden on teams from smaller conferences, like the University of Dayton. UD is tied for first place in the Atlantic 10 conference, and just shy of the RPI top 25. <\/span><\/p>\n

With their recent success in the NCAA tournament, it\u2019s safe to be confident they will receive one of these bids, even if they don\u2019t win the Atlantic 10 tournament. However, it is important they have a strong finish to the season, they need a good seed if they want to perform well at the big dance. <\/span><\/p>\n

ESPN\u2019s Joe Lunardi currently has the four number one seeds as Villanova, Kansas, North Carolina and Gonzaga. However, there is still a lot of basketball to be played. The winners of major conference championships like the ACC, Pac-12 and Big 10 will have a major advantage when it comes to seeding. <\/span><\/p>\n

However, those games are never paramount. The committee will have some tough choices as always, but in the end, it\u2019s tournament play that wins championships. <\/span><\/p>\n

The NCAA tournament will begin on Tuesday, March 14. The Office of Student Community and Engagement will also be taking brackets as part of a Sinclair competition. Stop by Building 8 Room 025 for more information.<\/span><\/p>\n

Matt Harlan<\/strong>
\nReporter<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

March Madness is on its way and the race to the Final Four is heating up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10290,"featured_media":14790,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[1392,1810,1529,1418,1809,1808,2013,1382,1383,1425],"class_list":["post-14808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tartan-news","tag-basketball","tag-brackets","tag-campus-events","tag-campus-life","tag-final-four","tag-march-madness","tag-matt-harlan","tag-news","tag-sports","tag-tartan-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5s3vR-3QQ","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/MarchMadness.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10290"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14808"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14808\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15622,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14808\/revisions\/15622"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}