danielb927
Orange Krush Class of 2013
- Rochester, MN
The top 4 seed only applies to round 1. They would want to avoid having a 4 seed Indiana playing 13 seed Charleston in Greensboro or something like that or Gonzaga playing in Orlando against Florida Atlantic(yes I know that seeding doesn’t line up but you get the point. But a 4 seed Gonzaga could play in Orlando and face a 5 seed Miami in round 2 without breaking the rules.
Moving seed lines is only to avoid rematches in round 1, but they try to avoid them in round 2.
I think 2021 is an outlier because everyone was in Indy.
Makes sense, but I think limiting the protection to 1st round only is a little weird. The top 4 lines can only face 13-16 seeds in round 1, and those are always teams from small, single-bid leagues. So you're "protecting" a team from facing UCF in Orlando (where nobody really cares about UCF hoops), but you can still have an 11 seeded UNC with a ravenous home fanbase in Greensboro against a 6 and then a 3? Just seems like minimal "protection", IMO. I'm not sure what the alternative would be. Maybe protect all favorites (1-8 seeds) in the first round, at least?