Do the seeds really matter? With GMC Tournament seeding Friday, we simulate the boys’ tournament – with a twist

Probably within a week of James Naismith organizing the first basketball game, the teams he picked probably griped about who they had to play next.

Probably.

Fast forward 134 years, and teams still gripe about their seeds, whether it’s the county or the state tournament, or the NCAA Tournament.

We have the solution!

Well, not really. This isn’t legit.

Seriously. Please don’t take this seriously.

But we kind of felt like proving a (ridiculous) point today.

Last year, we mock-seeded the county tournament by the Born Power Index, a rating system that assesses teams based on margin of victory (or loss) relative to the strength of the opponent. (Don’t worry, we’re not going to explain it again!)

This year, we’re going a step further, to try and prove the theory that it doesn’t really matter who is seeded where, the best team will – or, at least, will have an opportunity – to win it all.

So this time, we went for the truly ridiculous: we seeded the GMC Boys’ Tournament alphabetically, and then simulated the entire bracket.

That’s right: Calvary Christian (1-14) “earned” the top-seed in our fictional, alphabetized, GMC Tournament, and Woodbridge (10-8) got the final seed at No. 33.

Colonia – which is expected to get the No. 1 seed as the Red Division champ (17-3 overall) – gets the three-seed, based purely on the alphabet.

So how did it play out?

Here are all the seeds from one to 33:

Next, we took a look at the matchups and predicted the outcomes. We didn’t attempt to pick any upsets, or look at matchups, or height mismatches on the inside, or whose press turns the ball over most.

In many cases, the teams had played during the year, and we went with whoever had won head-to-head, or by margin of victory if they split. We went with a Red Division champ over a White Division champ, or a similar record Blue Division team over one from the Gold. There were a few potential toss-ups.

We didn’t predict any scores, just outcomes:

We’re going to show you the bracket later. (Or, scroll down if you want to cheat!)

Here’s the breakdown of rounds by game, and our reasoning for each winner. Again, we picked no upsets, we didn’t look at matchups, and based our picks as wholly as possible on records, prior matchups and common/similar opponents.

Note that one consideration the committee looks at when comparing two teams, while subjective, is how they might do in the other division. Inotherwords, if you had a team from the Red and the Blue and the Blue team had 12 wins and the Red had 8, how would the Blue team have done if they played in the Red?

Keeping all that in mind, note this disclaimer: these are not our predictions if these teams met in the actual tournament! We just wanted to see who might win it, or have a chance to win it, if we seeded the teams having nothing to do with wins, losses, strength, or margin of victory.

Play-In Round:

(33) Woodbridge over (16) North Plainfield: The Barrons won a regular season meeting by 34.
(17) Old Bridge over (32) Wardlaw-Hartridge: Easy one for the 10-9 Red team over a five-win team from the Silver.
(25) South Brunswick over (24) South Amboy: The Vikings are 5-16, the Governors 8-12. With similar records, we go with the White over the Silver.
(28) Spotswood over (21) Piscataway Magnet: The Chargers and Middlesex play for first place in the Blue Division Thursday night. Considering them equivalent, P’way Magnet lost to Middlesex earlier this year, so we go with Spotswood here.
(20) Piscataway over (29) St. Joseph-Metuchen: The Chiefs won both regular season meetings.
(30) St. Thomas Aquinas over (19) Perth Amboy Magnet: Similar records, but should be an easy win for the Trojans.
(22) Sayreville over (27) South River: We know the Rams have Alex Grospe, but we’re going with the White Division champs (17-2 overall) over an 8-9 team from the Blue.
(26) South Plainfield over (23) Somerset Tech: Another easy one, with the second-place GMC White team over a 3-15 club.
(31) Timothy Christian over (18) Perth Amboy: This was a toss-up. They haven’t played, the Panthers are 10-10, and Timothy Christian is 11-6, and playing for the GMC Blue title Thursday night against Edison. The Tigers played up to the White this year, losing to North Brunswick by nine and beating South Brunswick by six. Both are just behind the Panthers. We went with Timothy here considering they’re playing for a division title just one division down, and have a better overall winning percentage.

Preliminary Round:

(17) Old Bridge over (33) Woodbridge: This was another tough one to call. The Knights are 10-9, the Barrons 10-8. Woodbridge lost its only game playing up to the Red, 60-40 to Colonia, while Old Bridge won its game against Perth Amboy out of the White. The Panthers are 10-10, similar to Woodbridge, and playing in a tougher division, we went with the Knights.
(25) South Brunswick over (5) JFK): The Vikings are 5-16 and play in the White, JFK 5-11 and playing in the Gold. We went with South Brunswick.
(12) Middlesex over (28) Spotswood: Keep in mind, the two play for the division title Thursday night, so – as of this moment – we’ll go with Middlesex, as the Blue Jays won the first meeting on opening night, 62-42.
(20) Piscataway over (13) Monroe: The Chiefs won both regular season meetings.
(30) St. Thomas over (14) New Brunswick: Easy one for the Trojans over the three-win Zebras.
(22) Sayreville over (11) Metuchen: The Bombers are having a fine year at 17-2, and we went GMC White champs over a middle-of-the-pack Blue team.
(26) South Plainfield over (10) JP Stevens: Going with the No. 2 team in the White over the fifth-place team in the Blue.
(15) North Brunswick over (18) Timothy Christian: Raiders won 53-45 over the Tigers back on January 25th.

First Round:

(17) Old Bridge over (1) Calvary Christian: Red team over a one-win team from the Gold.
(25) South Brunswick over (8) Highland Park: Sure, the Owls are 12-7, but they’re in the Silver and many of their division wins were close. Though the Vikings are 5-16, we’re going with South Brunswick.
(5) East Brunswick over (12) Middlesex: We’re taking the 12-9 White team over the 14-6 Blue team, even though the Bears are in the middle of the pack in their division.
(20) Piscataway over (4) Dunellen: While Colonia will be the No. 1 seed, Piscataway should get the No. 2, and would be one of the favorites to win the whole thing. Dunellen is a division champ in the Silver, but doesn’t play the caliber schedule the Chiefs do.
(3) Colonia over (30 St. Thomas Aquinas: The Patriots won both regular season meetings in the red division.
(22) Sayreville over (6) East Brunswick Magnet: The Bombers are the White Division champs, while the Tigers are 0-18.
(26) South Plainfield over (7) Edison: The Tigers beat the Eagles in their own Anthony J. Cotoia Holiday Tournament back in December.
(15) North Brunswick over (2) Carteret: The Raiders have a better overall record (8-13) playing in the White Division than Carteret (4-16) in the Blue.

Quarterfinals:

(17) Old Bridge over (25) South Brunswick: Former Red Division opponents, Old Bridge is 10-9 out of the Red while South Brunswick is 5-16 out of the White. Advantage: Knights.
(20) Piscataway over (5) East Brunswick: Chiefs are 17-4, Bears 12-9, and Piscataway plays a challenging out-of-conference schedule. We go with that-a-way with Piscataway.
(3) Colonia over (22) Sayreville: That would be a great matchup. We go with the Red winner over the White champ.
(26) South Plainfield over (15) North Brunswick: The Tigers beat the Raiders twice in the regular season.

Semifinals:

(20) Piscataway over (17) Old Bridge: The Chiefs won both regular season meetings.
(3) Colonia over (26) South Plainfield: If the Patriots beat the Bombers, on paper, they beat the Tigers.

Championship Game:

(3) Colonia over (20) Piscataway: Colonia won both regular season matchups.

Colonia sure had a hard road to the finals, starting with the opening round. They had to beat St. Thomas Aquinas, the third place team in the Red, then White champ Sayreville and White runner-up South Plainfield before facing the second-place team in the red in the finals.

But if they’re the best team, and many think they are, they should win it, right? It certainly wasn’t easy, but they’ve already swept Piscataway and St. Thomas Aquinas in the regular season.

Piscataway started with Dunellen and got progressively more challenging games, with East Brunswick out of the White, Old Bridge and Colonia from the Red.

St. Thomas Aquinas got knocked out in the first round, having to play Colonia, but they very well could beat them. Always tough to beat a team three times in one year, right?

Here’s the full pre-tournament mock bracket, with teams seeded alphabetically: