29 hours until the play-in game!
What would bracket time be without some controversy? Let's take a look around the country at some of the troubled tales permeating the otherwise serene basketball landscape.
- They're highly irritated in Niagara, and I can't blame them. The Purple Eagles, winners of the MAAC automatic bid, were forced into the play-in game despite having an RPI that was clear of the mendoza line for the 16 seeds. For the record, I think the play-in game is a joke anyway --- another effort by the BCS conferences to ensure their cut of tournament revenue doesn't decrease. But the selection process for the play-in game is similarly laugh-inducing. It's supposed to pair the two automatic qualifiers with the worst overall profiles - which this year was unquestionably Florida A&M (MEAC) and Jackson State (SWAC). However, both schools are historically black colleges in historically black conferences, and there have been allegations of latent racism in the selection process by these conferences, as Buffalo News writer Jerry Sullivan points out. Of course, the NCAA denies that this played a part, claiming that Niagara, who lost several games earlier this year for taking the high road and suspending players involved in an off-court incident, was placed in the play-in game because they were among the two worst teams. Anyone who takes even a cursory look at the numbers would disagree.
UPDATE: I'm apparently not alone in my irritation over the play-in situation. Andy Katz, ESPN's senior college basketball writer, stated on Outside The Lines on Monday afternoon that SWAC champion Jackson State should indeed be in the play-in game instead of Niagara.
- For what it's worth, Florida A&M isn't happy about being placed in the play-in game, either.
- They're hopping mad in Manhattan, Kansas, and awash in conspiracy theories to boot! Yes, apparently a Kansas City-area radio host is claiming that Big 12 commissioner Kevin Weiberg...well, just read the article and decide for yourself.
- They're pithy and poignant in Philadelphia, where Drexel got left out of the Big Dance despite a surprising amount of success against a brutal non-conference road schedule. According to committee chairman Gary Walters, the Dragons just didn't match the in-conference performance of Old Dominion, marking perhaps the first time ever that conference performance in the COLONIAL was used as a meter of tournament readiness (funny how that wasn't considered for George Mason last year, eh?). As former UMass headman Bruiser Flint noted, "When you get robbed, you get robbed."
- They're going to be busy pondering for a while in Syracuse, if we're to take Jim Boeheim's words at face value. Note to Coach Boeheim: Try scheduling some games outside of the state of New York next year. You never know, it might help!
- They're terribly distraught and disappointed in Tallahassee...or at least, in one part of Tallahassee. Who'd have ever thought that a team from the city would make the NCAA tournament, and it WOULDN'T be Florida State? The Seminoles are wondering why they didn't get the same treatment as Stanford; meanwhile, one wonders if the unbalanced ACC and Big East schedules aren't hurting their teams come selection time?
- They're sad and confused in Akron, and again I can't blame them. I was rooting for Miami in the MAC title game, but that was with the idea in the back of my head that a 26-win team surely wouldn't be left out of the NIT. Well, they have been. Terry Pluto is outraged, and I share the view.
- They're also shocked and outraged in Seattle, where the Washington Huskies were so sure of HOSTING an NIT game that they were taped up and ready to practice after the NIT draw on Sunday night. Athletic Director Todd Turner thinks the Huskies' snub discredits the whole NIT selection process, while freshman phenom Spencer Hawes suspects that there might be some of the dreaded "east coast bias" in play.
- If you believe C.M. Newton, Iowa was one of the last teams left out of the NIT field. I'm sure that'll be of great comfort to Steve Alford and the Iowa fans in the off-season. There was considerable outrage on the Iowa message boards after the NIT selection show last night, with their Rivals.com site hitting its all-time record for users online. That, and the increasing hostility in the state, do not bode well for Alford. (Bonus note: According to the article, loyal Alford number two Craig Neal may be leaving to take the head coaching job at the University of Denver.)
- You can count Gonzaga among the teams on the "happy" side of the ledger. The Zags were pleasantly surprised to not only get a 10 seed, but also be playing in their home time zone.
- Also among the happy are the Arkansas Razorbacks, who didn't even stick around in Atlanta to watch the tournament show --- they found out the good news from their pilot as they were descending into Fayetteville. Stan Heath is vindicated! (Although he denies any feelings of vindication.)
- They were ecstatic in Palo Alto, as Stanford literally received the last NCAA tournament bid --- at least, it was the last bid that CBS showed on the selection program.
- Despite the success of the Missouri Valley Conference in the past few seasons, some coaches, including Creighton's Dana Altman, are concerned that the league may be due for a "market correction" of sorts in the next couple of years.
- Someone needs to just lock Mitch Barnhart in his office and not let him out until he promises to never talk to the media again. Was it necessary to create ANOTHER story that is bound to swirl around Tubby Smith and the Kentucky basketball team? I think not. Something tells me this won't go over too well among Wildcat Nation.
- I'm sure this will be a shock to you, but Ohio State and Kansas apparently have problems graduating basketball players. As UCF's Richard Lapchick says, "The supposed Final Four, the top seeds are a real disparity there. Two of the schools, Florida and North Carolina, have really good graduation rates and Kansas and Ohio State don't have such good graduation rates." Before we start patting Roy Williams on the back, please keep in mind that most of the Kansas players examined in this study were recruited by (and played for) him in Lawrence.
UPDATE: For those interested in reading the full report, it's located here. Good thing that Oregon shoots better than it graduates!
- In NetWire-centric news, The Bracket Project has the aggregate totals up for this year's bracketology fest. I'm pleased to report that we beat many of the "national" pundits, including a sound thrashing of Joe Lunardi and ESPN Bracketology. Congratulations to the official Bracket Project bracket, which managed to nail 33 of 34 at-large teams (one more than NetWire). And thanks again to The Bracket Project, for taking our geeky science and giving it some comparative oomph. The final NetWire bracket projection is here.
MAILBAG OF WONDER
Time for some reader mail...
A fair point on both counts, anonymous reader. I thought that the NCAA had changed the rule that "locked" the regions against each other before the tournament started, in order to avoid the very thing that occurred in this tournament draw. Perhaps they did, and this is just the outcome of that. You're right, however...it's a silly rule, brought on by too much ACC consternation that their teams kept taking each other out in the National Semifinals. Since only about 50% of #1 seeds make it to the Final Four (and none made it last year), it does appear that such region-matching is devoid of sense. Furthermore, why not just have the South winner play the West winner, if the #1 vs #4 matchup is what you want in the semifinals?
Tomorrow: I haven't filled out my bracket yet. Tomorrow that will change, and we'll look at the matchups that await us this week.
Comments? Email me at thermocaster (at) gmail.com, or just hit me up in the comment field below.
- They're highly irritated in Niagara, and I can't blame them. The Purple Eagles, winners of the MAAC automatic bid, were forced into the play-in game despite having an RPI that was clear of the mendoza line for the 16 seeds. For the record, I think the play-in game is a joke anyway --- another effort by the BCS conferences to ensure their cut of tournament revenue doesn't decrease. But the selection process for the play-in game is similarly laugh-inducing. It's supposed to pair the two automatic qualifiers with the worst overall profiles - which this year was unquestionably Florida A&M (MEAC) and Jackson State (SWAC). However, both schools are historically black colleges in historically black conferences, and there have been allegations of latent racism in the selection process by these conferences, as Buffalo News writer Jerry Sullivan points out. Of course, the NCAA denies that this played a part, claiming that Niagara, who lost several games earlier this year for taking the high road and suspending players involved in an off-court incident, was placed in the play-in game because they were among the two worst teams. Anyone who takes even a cursory look at the numbers would disagree.
UPDATE: I'm apparently not alone in my irritation over the play-in situation. Andy Katz, ESPN's senior college basketball writer, stated on Outside The Lines on Monday afternoon that SWAC champion Jackson State should indeed be in the play-in game instead of Niagara.
- For what it's worth, Florida A&M isn't happy about being placed in the play-in game, either.
- They're hopping mad in Manhattan, Kansas, and awash in conspiracy theories to boot! Yes, apparently a Kansas City-area radio host is claiming that Big 12 commissioner Kevin Weiberg...well, just read the article and decide for yourself.
- They're pithy and poignant in Philadelphia, where Drexel got left out of the Big Dance despite a surprising amount of success against a brutal non-conference road schedule. According to committee chairman Gary Walters, the Dragons just didn't match the in-conference performance of Old Dominion, marking perhaps the first time ever that conference performance in the COLONIAL was used as a meter of tournament readiness (funny how that wasn't considered for George Mason last year, eh?). As former UMass headman Bruiser Flint noted, "When you get robbed, you get robbed."
- They're going to be busy pondering for a while in Syracuse, if we're to take Jim Boeheim's words at face value. Note to Coach Boeheim: Try scheduling some games outside of the state of New York next year. You never know, it might help!
- They're terribly distraught and disappointed in Tallahassee...or at least, in one part of Tallahassee. Who'd have ever thought that a team from the city would make the NCAA tournament, and it WOULDN'T be Florida State? The Seminoles are wondering why they didn't get the same treatment as Stanford; meanwhile, one wonders if the unbalanced ACC and Big East schedules aren't hurting their teams come selection time?
- They're sad and confused in Akron, and again I can't blame them. I was rooting for Miami in the MAC title game, but that was with the idea in the back of my head that a 26-win team surely wouldn't be left out of the NIT. Well, they have been. Terry Pluto is outraged, and I share the view.
- They're also shocked and outraged in Seattle, where the Washington Huskies were so sure of HOSTING an NIT game that they were taped up and ready to practice after the NIT draw on Sunday night. Athletic Director Todd Turner thinks the Huskies' snub discredits the whole NIT selection process, while freshman phenom Spencer Hawes suspects that there might be some of the dreaded "east coast bias" in play.
- If you believe C.M. Newton, Iowa was one of the last teams left out of the NIT field. I'm sure that'll be of great comfort to Steve Alford and the Iowa fans in the off-season. There was considerable outrage on the Iowa message boards after the NIT selection show last night, with their Rivals.com site hitting its all-time record for users online. That, and the increasing hostility in the state, do not bode well for Alford. (Bonus note: According to the article, loyal Alford number two Craig Neal may be leaving to take the head coaching job at the University of Denver.)
- You can count Gonzaga among the teams on the "happy" side of the ledger. The Zags were pleasantly surprised to not only get a 10 seed, but also be playing in their home time zone.
- Also among the happy are the Arkansas Razorbacks, who didn't even stick around in Atlanta to watch the tournament show --- they found out the good news from their pilot as they were descending into Fayetteville. Stan Heath is vindicated! (Although he denies any feelings of vindication.)
- They were ecstatic in Palo Alto, as Stanford literally received the last NCAA tournament bid --- at least, it was the last bid that CBS showed on the selection program.
- Despite the success of the Missouri Valley Conference in the past few seasons, some coaches, including Creighton's Dana Altman, are concerned that the league may be due for a "market correction" of sorts in the next couple of years.
- Someone needs to just lock Mitch Barnhart in his office and not let him out until he promises to never talk to the media again. Was it necessary to create ANOTHER story that is bound to swirl around Tubby Smith and the Kentucky basketball team? I think not. Something tells me this won't go over too well among Wildcat Nation.
- I'm sure this will be a shock to you, but Ohio State and Kansas apparently have problems graduating basketball players. As UCF's Richard Lapchick says, "The supposed Final Four, the top seeds are a real disparity there. Two of the schools, Florida and North Carolina, have really good graduation rates and Kansas and Ohio State don't have such good graduation rates." Before we start patting Roy Williams on the back, please keep in mind that most of the Kansas players examined in this study were recruited by (and played for) him in Lawrence.
UPDATE: For those interested in reading the full report, it's located here. Good thing that Oregon shoots better than it graduates!
- In NetWire-centric news, The Bracket Project has the aggregate totals up for this year's bracketology fest. I'm pleased to report that we beat many of the "national" pundits, including a sound thrashing of Joe Lunardi and ESPN Bracketology. Congratulations to the official Bracket Project bracket, which managed to nail 33 of 34 at-large teams (one more than NetWire). And thanks again to The Bracket Project, for taking our geeky science and giving it some comparative oomph. The final NetWire bracket projection is here.
MAILBAG OF WONDER
Time for some reader mail...
Dear Netwire,
I think Florida had to be in the Midwest and OSU in the south to so the #1 overall seed(Florida) would play the #4 overall seed(Kansas.) The alternative would have been putting UNC in the west and Kansas in the East.
That's a stupid rule, counting on all four #1's to advance is idiotic on a number of levels not the least of which is all four #1 seeds haven't ever advanced. At least not in the same tournament.
-Anonymous
A fair point on both counts, anonymous reader. I thought that the NCAA had changed the rule that "locked" the regions against each other before the tournament started, in order to avoid the very thing that occurred in this tournament draw. Perhaps they did, and this is just the outcome of that. You're right, however...it's a silly rule, brought on by too much ACC consternation that their teams kept taking each other out in the National Semifinals. Since only about 50% of #1 seeds make it to the Final Four (and none made it last year), it does appear that such region-matching is devoid of sense. Furthermore, why not just have the South winner play the West winner, if the #1 vs #4 matchup is what you want in the semifinals?
Tomorrow: I haven't filled out my bracket yet. Tomorrow that will change, and we'll look at the matchups that await us this week.
Comments? Email me at thermocaster (at) gmail.com, or just hit me up in the comment field below.
posted by Thermocaster at 1:43:00 PM
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