March Madness

The teams have been selected. Brackets are printable. It is now time to make your picks. What will the first round upsets be? Who will the sleepers be? Will this be the first year that all four #1 seeds make the final four? Who didn't deserve to be in the field? Who got left out?

I watched the 5:00 NCAA Tournament special on CBS Sunday evening. Overall, I'd give the committee a B- grade on their selections. First off, where's the love to George Washington, Gonzaga, and Boston College? GW finished the season at 26-2 in the respectable Atlantic 10 Conference. Two losses all season and one of those came in the A-10 Tournament to Temple. GW was ranked in the Top Ten nationally and what do they get rewarded with? A #8 seed. Yeah, they go 26-2 and they have to play in an 8-9 game. Gonzaga went 27-3, have had a history of solid tournament performances, and have one of the best players in the nation in Adam Morrison. They're an obvious #2 seed, right? No. They get shafted again, being seeded #3. BC was ranked #11 nationally for the ACC Tournament and they made it all the way to the ACC Title Game, only to lose a two-point heartbreaker to the #1 overall seed, Duke. What are they rewarded with? A #4 seed. They're an obvious #3 seed in my book, maybe even a #2.

Kansas, Syracuse, and Indiana were all considered bubble teams not long ago. But, KU and Syracuse won their conference tournaments and were catapulted up to a #4 and #5 seed in their respective region. Indiana was seeded #6. The big name schools got the love when it came to these three.

Who got left out? The two I had a problem with are Cincinnati and Missouri State. Cincy played .500 ball in the toughest conference in all the country, the Big East. The RPI may say the Big Ten is better, but let's do the math. How many teams got in from the Big Ten? Six (#2, #3, #6, #6, #9, and #4). How many got in from the Big East? A record eight, including two #1's (#1, #1, #4, #5, #7, #10, #6, and #5). Do the math, and that's a total seeding of thirty for the Big Ten with six teams. Average those out and you come to an even five. Add the totals for the Big East and that comes to thirty-nine. Average that number out amongst eight teams and that comes out to just under five. So, the Big East got more teams into the tournament and overall, have a higher seeding average than the Big Ten. So, forget the RPI on this one. The Big East is the best conference this year. Cincy won nineteen games and went even in the toughest conference in the country. How they weren't accepted is beyond me. Missouri State was ranked #21 in the RPI at season's end. How in the world does a team not get in with an RPI of 21? That was the highest RPI ranking to ever be left out of the NCAA Tournament. Who's accepted? A seventeen win Alabama team? An Air Force club who didn't beat a top 50 team all year? Give me a break.

Outside of those few mistakes, I think the committee did a decent job, much more so than announcers Jim Nance and Billy Packer think. During the CBS Tournament Special on Sunday, Nance and Packer went on a rant about how they couldn't understand why the Missouri Valley got four teams into the tournament, the Colonial Conference got two teams into the tournament, and yet, the Pac Ten, Big XII, and ACC each had only four teams going dancing. They pulled out their stats book and notified the committee on how many more victories the major conferences have had in the tournament than the mid-majors, in particular, the Missouri Valley. They also ranted about how it's the committee's job to select the 34 best teams and made the argument that if the Bradley's and George Mason's of the college basketball world played in the ACC or the Big XII, they wouldn't be able to finish .500 in conference. So, because of that "rationalization," the power conference schools should be favored over the mid-majors.

I'm going to argue Nance and Packer on this one. The committee's job is not to select the 34 best teams to go dancing as you so declare. Their job is not to select the 34 best based solely upon talent and the conference teams they face in the year. The committee's job is to select the 34 most deserving teams to the dance. If a team from the ACC, is loaded in talent, has a rich history or tradition, but has not met expectations, finishing the season 17-11, then they should not be rewarded with an invite to the tournament. A team in a mid-major conference who goes 25-7, competes with teams in their non-conference schedule, and wins the majority of their conference games, should be rewarded. What, if Shaquille O'Neal was injured for the bulk of the season and the Miami Heat only finished .500 without him, a game back of the eighth and final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference, should Miami be allowed to go if Shaq is expected to be healthy in time for the playoffs? No. Why even play the regular season games if they don't matter? That's what the regular season is for. If UConn underachieved this year and only went 17-13, should they have been invited? No. Even though they're one of the biggest named schools in all of college hoops and arguably have one of the most talented teams in the nation, if they don't play well throughout the course of the regular season, then they don't deserve an NCAA Tournament invite. Sure, the Utah State's and George Mason's of the world may not do as well in a major conference as the Michigan's and Florida State's, but the selection process should not be based upon hypothetical scenarios. Those will get a person nowhere. They should be based upon what happens during the season. Michigan started off very strongly, at 16-3, but lost seven of their final nine games to finish 18-10. They played themselves out of a tournament spot right there. I don't care if they are a "better" team than Bradley. Bradley played themselves in and Michigan played themselves out. It's as simple as that. Who will get rewarded at a job? The person who is considered perhaps the brightest one at the place, but slacks off daily and doesn't fulfill his or her potential? Or, the overachieving little guy, who may not have quite the potential of the other, but has proven to be more productive and beneficial with his effort and determination? I say, let that first person go and keep the second one. Not everyone is a George W. Bush, where he fails at his jobs and then is (s)elected president. That's not how things usually work and not how things should ever work. Reward the smaller and mid-major conference teams for exceptional seasons. Just because a team may play in a tougher conference, may have more talent, and may win a one-on-one competition, does not mean that they deserve the tournament invite over a team who played consistently well throughout the season, fulfilled their potential and thensome, and was hot down the stretch.

I don't care what Nance and Packer's arguments are. I don't agree. Just like you don't reward the Indianapolis Colts if Peyton Manning goes down, only to come back at the end of the season when they're at 7-8, you shouldn't reward a team like Michigan or South Carolina who went 18-10 and 18-15, respectively. There were two flip-flops I would've made with the teams that were chosen: Cincinnati for Alabama and Missouri State for Air Force. Other than that, I think the committee did a decent job with the teams they selected. I only hope that the small and mid-major teams go on to upset some of the bigger name schools. We shall see. Enough ranting. It's time to do a little research and fill out those brackets!