A Geographic Look at March Madness

Quick! Answer this question!

Where is St. Bonaventure located?

How about Iona?

Both of these Catholic schools are in the great state of New York. The St. Bonaventure Bonnies (real creative nickname) reside in the western part of the state, in the Allegheny River Valley, whereas the Iona Gaels are located in New Rochelle, closer to NYC. In total, four universities in New York state received invites to the 2012 NCAA men's basketball tournament. The other two are Syracuse and LIU-Brooklyn.

This year, the state that received the most bids was North Carolina. Five invites were sent to UNC, Duke, Davidson, UNC-Asheville, and NC State. How is this relevant?

Last year, the state of Virginia got five teams in, and two of those teams went to the Sweet Sixteen (Richmond and VCU), and one of them made it to the Final Four.

On the other hand, Pennsylvania had five bids, and the state only notched two wins (Temple, Pittsburgh). So maybe there is no significance to this...although three of the 2011 Final Four teams came from states receiving three bids or more (Virginia, Indiana, and Kentucky). Then I looked back at the four Final Fours before that (2007-2010), and I found no correlation between number of state bids and Final Four appearances.

So that was a giant waste of time, and it was not useful in predicting the teams that will end up in New Orleans.

But just for the fun of it, here are the other states that got three or more college invites (besides North Carolina and New York):

California (4) - San Diego St., St. Mary's, Long Beach St., California

Kentucky (4) - Louisville, Kentucky, Murray St., Western Kentucky

Ohio (4) - Cincinnati, Ohio St., Xavier, Ohio

Virginia (3) - VCU, Virginia, Norfolk St.

Indiana (3) - Notre Dame, Indiana, Purdue

Tennessee (3) - Vanderbilt, Memphis, Belmont

Michigan (3) - Detroit, Michigan, Michigan St.

Florida (3) - Florida St., Florida, Southern Florida

Kansas (3) - Kansas, Kansas St., Wichita St.

Of note: Oregon and Illinois laid big fat goose eggs, and my home state of Washington only got one bid - Gonzaga.

Go Aztecs! I place my rooting interests solely on you!

Hit it, Rockapella!