Monday, March 16, 2009

The NCAA Tournament: From a Political Perspective

Political Base: A Different Look At The NCAA Tournament...

[] I thought it would be fun to take a different at the NCAA Tournament. Of the 65 schools in this year's tournament, 42 are located in congressional districts represented by Democrats, while just 23 by Republicans.

Some highlights:

* All four #1 seeds are represented by Democrats;

* Only three first-round games have GOP versus GOP;

* Only two members have more than one school in the tournament -- David Price (D-NC) who claims both UNC and Duke -- and, obscurely, Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) whose district includes Cornell and Binghampton;

* There are a number of opening round games with vast philosophical contrasts, but my favorite is probably Tom Cole (R-OK) versus Elijah Cummings (D-MD). Though, Lamar Smith (R-TX) versus Keith Ellison (D-MN) and John Shadegg (R-AZ) versus Chaka Fattah (D-MD) are strong as well;

* Of the three Kentucky districts in the tournament, missing for the first time since 1991 is the state's basketball capital, the 6th Congressional District, represented by Ben Chandler (D-KY), a district which includes Univ. of Kentucky which broke an 17 year streak of tournament appearances.

Instead, John Yarmuth (D-KY) -- whose district is separated from Chandler's by only one county (Shelby), is the tournament's overall top seed.


Go read the whole thing; he divides the pool up by Congressional Representative.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nothing obscure about Maurice Hinchey! ...or Cornell and Binghamton for that matter

truth said...

Hilariously, he spells it "Binghampton". My friend who grew up there used to call it Bimmington, sarcastically.