FanHouse Selection Sunday

Mike DeCourcy at the Sporting News calls bull on the bemoaning of Mid-Major bubble teams getting the shaft this year, and especially the way CBS presented the issue.

CBS presented an absolute whopper when it aired a graphic stating the number of "mid-major at-large bids" to the NCAA Tournament had declined from 12 in 2004 to 6 in 2007. This was up on the screen while announcer Seth Davis declared this trend to be "bad for college basketball" because mid-major schools add charm to the event.
Yeah, well, maybe if this trend weren't manufactured, this problem would be a problem.

Let's travel back in time, shall we? We'll go back to the days CBS determined to be the golden days of mid-major basketball: 2003-04. It was a grand time, indeed, when Louisville was a mid-major power.

He makes a good point. If mid-major is being used as shorthand for teams in non-BCS conferences then a lot of the shift can simply be attributed to ACC and Big East expansion. The main programs that were supplying at-large teams were coming from C-USA with Memphis, Louisville, Cinci, Marquette and DePaul. The latter four are now in the Big East. Until that point, Conference USA was a legitimate basketball power conference. They contended regularly for top seeds in the brackets, and no one was calling them a mid-major. There is a certain revisionism to now go back and declare that they were really mid majors.

He also notes that the A-10 was the other conference getting a lot of at-large bids in the 90s and at the start of the 21st century -- UMass, Temple, St. Joe's, Xavier and George Washington late. That's part of the equation for the decline as only Xavier and GW have remained consistently good enough to make the field. In that year, the only at-large bid from a mid-major not in C-USA, A-10 or MWC was Southern Illinois of the MVC.

This year, the 6 mid-major at-large bids came from 6 conferences: Horizon, Colonial, MVC, MWC, WAC and A-10. By the numbers, that makes more sense and "spreads the wealth." I think going by numbers in or out, though, is nothing more then easy shorthand that DeCourcy rightly decried.

I still disagree with DeCourcy's overall conclusion because, as I have written previously, the Selection Committee has made it more difficult for mid-majors to get into the Tournament, because they are changing and shifting standards. This means more favoritism to the BCS conference teams, that have the consistency of stronger conferences to buoy them. It preserves more of a status quo and keeps the other conferences below the majors.

It also means that it is that much harder for the A-10, MVC or MWC to build their overall conference strength when it is being discounted by the NCAA Selection Committee. It means less national exposure and chances to sell the schools and conference to the recruits. And it is still the players that matter for success.

I know you are probably sick of reading about the selection committee and their mistakes and everything else. I understand. I don't blame you. That said, I'm going to take one more run at them.

The one good thing you can say about the Selection Committee is that they were honest about their inconsistencies. Selection Committee Chairman Gary Walters, would talk about all the factors that went into deciding whether a team was in or out and if in, how they were seeded. Then, he would immediately follow it up by saying it wasn't "categorical" across the field. In other words, they didn't apply their standards consistently.

This, of course, screwed Drexel. They followed the template highly recommended by previous selection committees and perfected by the Missouri Valley Conference. They played a very challenging non-con. They went on the road for many of the games and they won a lot of those games. This covered for the weakness of the conference and even with some stumbles in conference and losing in the second round of their tournament, they finished with an RPI of 39. Suddenly, that wasn't good enough because the selection committee saw their flaws as too deep. Mainly, they lost 3 games in the conference season and lost too early in the Tournament to the eventual winner, VCU. Other schools like Bradley, Missouri St. and Utah St. suffered similar fates.

Teams that slid off the bubble (or had their bubbles aggressively violated by an incompetent selection committee, as some would have you believe) spent much of today bitching and crying about being excluded from the tournament. And that's fine ... it's to be expected, it happens every year, and yes, it's true that some teams did get unfairly railroaded.

But don't let it linger too long, alright? The NIT can be a valuable thing for a young basketball team, and if a team goes in there all mopey and plays with extended lower lips, they're missing an opportunity to grow their team.

I'll use West Virginia as an example, because I think they fit the profile pretty well. They're a young team, with just two seniors that play significant minutes, and the backups for those two guys are already in place. Making a deep run into the NIT would be way more valuable to this team than would be getting bounced in the first or second round of the NCAA. It's all about getting that tournament experience. One-and-done is a different feeling.

Remember a couple of years ago when the NIT filed an anti-trust lawsuit against the NCAA, because they mandated that if a team was invited to the NCAA Tournament, they had to accept? One of the guys who testified on behalf of the NIT was Bob Knight, who said he could envision circumstances where he'd rather his team played in the NIT than the NCAA. If there's no realistic chance of making a deep NCAA run, why not get a few more games of tournament experience?

And I know you'd like to think that your bubble team was going to make a run to the Final Four, but, and I'm sorry to have the be the one to tell you this, they weren't. If you were on the bubble to begin with, it's overwhelmingly unlikely that you'd even sniff the Final Four. Yes, there are cinderella teams every year. No, it wasn't going to be you.

So my advice to players and coaches would be to take a day or two, mope and weep, and then prepare for the NIT like it is the big dance. Lemons, lemonade ... that whole thing.

Does CBS have any say on Selection Sunday? Does the network that televises the NCAA Tournament and puts hundreds of millions of dollars into the schools' pockets expect to be compensated for that investment with TV-friendly matchups?

UCLA coach Ben Howland implied yesterday that he thinks the network does, indeed, manipulate the brackets, and that's why his team's first three games could include the storylines of Howland coaching against his alma mater (Weber State), then against the school where he got his first coaching job (Gonzaga), then against the school he coached before UCLA (Pittsburgh).

"I'm not surprised by it. I don't chuckle, but I'm not surprised by it," Howland said. "CBS is paying a lot of money to telecast the NCAA Tournament, about $700 to $800 million a year over the lifetime of the deal ... so, of course, if good TV is available, it's going to be more commanding to viewership."

I don't know if Howland realizes what a serious charge that is -- if the Selection Committee is basing its decisions on "good TV" rather than on putting the most deserving teams into the brackets where they belong, that calls into question the integrity of the competition. That's why the Selection Committee insists that the idea that they try to set up interesting games is a "myth." Still, with CBS already facing criticism for forcing the Selection Committee to work around its TV schedule, both the network and the NCAA probably wish Howland wouldn't broach that subject.

Hat tip: Larry Brown Sports.

Andy Rooney is more important to college basketball than Kevin Durant. At least, that's the inference you'd have to draw from the comments of NCAA Selection Committee Chairman Gary Walters.

During the CBS Selection Sunday show, Walters acknowledged that the Texas-Kansas Big 12 championship game had no impact on the Selection Committee's seedings, and that the Committee slotted Kansas as a No. 1 seed without bothering to see how that game turned out. That has many commentators asking a simple question today: Why didn't the Selection Committee take its time, watch all the games, and make its choices after careful consideration?

The answer: Because CBS doesn't want anyone tinkering with its schedule. CBS wants to put the Big Ten championship game on the air in the afternoon, follow it immediately with the Selection Sunday show, and have that show finished in time for 60 Minutes to start so Rooney can make his curmudgeonly complaints about why margarine doesn't taste as good as butter by the time the network's entertainment lineup begins at 8 p.m. ET.

All sorts of problems could arise. For instance, what if both the Big Ten and Big 12 championship games go into double overtime, and both of them include a team that won't get an at-large bid? There's just no way the Selection Committee has time to weigh every team's merits in the tiny window allotted them by CBS. But don't expect anything to change as long as CBS is paying the bills.

As we noted yesterday, there's a bit of an uncomfortable trend here: Why are black colleges so often the ones sent to the play in? To the surprise of no one, both Niagara and Florida A&M were pissed about having to go to Dayton for a Tuesday play-in game.

Both coaches were livid at being selected for the play-in game, both for the travel inconvenience and the diminishing of the honor that went with winning their conference tournament.

"We've earned the right by winning our tournament," FAMU coach Mike Gillespie Sr. said. "There are teams that didn't win their tournament, didn't win their league, that are already in."

Niagara coach Joe Mihalich agreed.

"Let me be diplomatic here. I'm confused," Mihalich said. "There were five schools with a lower RPI than us, and our conference was ranked 24th, not as good as we've been, as we were 15th last year. We've won 11 in a row.

"I don't know how they came to this, but they did, and we have to go play a game on Tuesday."

Florida A&M will be playing the play-in game for the 2d time since the game started in 2001, and it is the 3d time the MAAC champion has played in it. The Rattlers returned from their conference tournament early Sunday morning and will have to fly out to Dayton today. If they win, they have to fly (or bus) to Chicago.

Niagara has a point about wondering how they were selected for the play-in game. Their conference RPI was 23d out of 31. Their RPI was 136 -- obviously not good, but teams behind them were North Texas (137), Weber State (143), Central Connectitcut (147), Jackson St. (168) and Florida A&M (171). Weber State, Central Connecticut and Jackson State play in conferences that finished behind the MAAC in conference RPI as well.

It's hard not to notice that Jackson State was the second worst team by RPI and plays in the SWAC -- another conference made up of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) -- which was also the worst ranked conference by RPI. The SWAC teams already had 3 play-in appearances while the MAAC "only" had 2.

There seems to be a very thinly-veiled attempt by the Selection Committees to avoid having the MAAC and SWAC -- conferences populated by HBCUs -- in the play-in game in the same year. This issue will only get stickier for the NCAA as the play-in game continues each year. The NCAA is not going to be able to avoid the uncomfortable issue of race and marginalization of these schools for more than a couple more years if this keeps happening.

Previously at Fanhouse: Play-in Game Ghetto

Look, the NCAA Selection Committee Chairman, Gary Walters, is a smart guy. He played basketball at Princeton, he actually was a basketball coach before eventually becoming Princeton's Athletic director. He does, however, think the public has no clue.

Having watched far too much Selection Sunday specials and interviews with Gary Walters, I noticed he kept coming back to referencing this issue.

Q. When you added it all up and found six mid majors in there, were you and the other committee members surprised?

GARY WALTERS: You know what's really funny is the impression that people have. Last year, if you'll recall, we had eight mid majors in the tournament, and the general impression eight at large mid majors in the tournament, 'so called mid majors,' with quotes. The impression out there was that the tournament committee had gone overboard by selecting mid majors. We were criticized to no end by any number of media with regard to that selection, when in fact there has been a range historically of mid major at large teams from basically five to 12. That's something that I didn't realize until I basically asked our own people to look that up.

When we start our process, we throw conference affiliation out the door. I know we repeat that, we say that. I think the writers that went through the mock selection a couple weeks ago had very, very similar experiences. I refer to it as tabula rasa, clean slate. That's the way we look at this. Then we start to compare and contrast.

It just shakes out where it shakes out. This year it happened to shake out with six at large teams from the so called mid majors.

One of the really neat things, however, about this tournament is the fact, and I think what makes it especially a quintessential Americana, is this balance, if you will, between the AQs, which I like to refer to has its roots in Jeffersonian democracy or Jacksonian democracy versus the at large teams which has its roots in Jeffersonian democracy.

One of the great things about this tournament is we have the balance between the two. I think that's what makes March Madness special.

[Emphasis added.]

And this was one of his more detailed explanation as to what he meant by Jeffersonian versus Jacksonian democracy.

Syracuse, to the surprise of many, was excluded from the NCAA Tournament. The level of outrage on the ESPN Tournament Selection Show was highest on the exclusion of Syracuse. As the Bracket Project showed, no one expected Syracuse to be excluded.

Gary Walters, the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee Chairman, came on via video to talk about the selection. He stressed that while there was no "message" from the Selection Committee, Arkansas got the edge over a lot of other teams because of how deep they got in the SEC Tournament. Then he shifted backwards and spoke of how the Committee paid careful attention to the entire body of work of a team. After that, he backtracked to say this was not categorical on how they decided things. Everyone following along?

Then they brought in Syracuse Coach Jim Boeheim to talk about his reaction to being left out of the NCAA Tournament on the phone. Boeheim's response was, "Well, it was total shock." He continued by stating without any apparent irony or attempt a a joke, "I don't pay a lot of attention to the pundits but every single one of them had us in the Tournament."

After that he talked some more about the record and how Syracuse had played the 4th hardest Big East schedule with the unbalanced scheduling and gotten 10 wins including victories over Georgetown, Villanova and Marquette. He also noted that Syracuse finished ahead of both Villanova and Marquette in the conference. He made his case and clearly suggested that the Committee missed the boat on his team when noting that Syracuse had a winning road record (.500 in conference) which none of the last teams in (Arkansas, primarily) had.

The ESPN crew shifted back to Walters and asked him about the points Boeheim brought up. In a surprisingly condescending tone, Greg Walters deflected the issue by saying that "people disguise self-interest in the name of certain principles."

Wow. I guess that was his way observing that Boeheim was speaking as someone with the viewpoint and agenda of a specific team while the committee had to consider all of the teams.

Well, duh. That doesn't actually surprise anyone. Jim Boeheim wasn't disguising anything. He was pointing out his team's resume and wondering how they got excluded based on the criteria. I guess I shouldn't be surprised he wasn't called on this, but geez that was weak.

Though it'll never happen, it'd be really nice to know sometime exactly what criteria the Tournament Selection Committee uses for selection and seeding. A popular topic is always how much value they put on a team's RPI ranking (which I hope is low, but more on that in a little bit). With that in mind, check out some of these statistical oddities as they relate to the RPI and the tournament seeding.

Highest-rated RPI team that did not get a 1-seed: UCLA, RPI #2 (In addition, Wisconsin was RPI #4, while Pittsburgh was RPI #5.)

Lowest rated RPI team that did get a 1-seed: Kansas, RPI #11 (and if you're curious about the other 1-seeds, they are as follows: Ohio State RPI #1, UNC RPI #3, and Florida RPI #6).

Highest-rated RPI team that did not get into the tournament: Air Force, RPI #30. Other notables include Missouri State, RPI #36, Bradley, RPI #38 (the committee, though it was generally known beforehand that they wouldn't be, weren't very nice to the Missouri Valley Conference), and Florida State RPI # 41.

Lowest-rapted RPI team that did get into the tournament: Stanford, RPI #65 (65!). Other notables include: Georgia Tech, RPI #52, Texas Tech, RPI #53, and Virginia, RPI #55.

I don't know what happened in that committee room, but it looks like one person stood up and screamed, "Hey, the Big East sucks," and everyone else just believed him.

Georgetown got their 2-seed, and Pitt got their 3-seed, both of which are right in line with what everyone expected. Past that, though, the Big East was flipped over and done dry. Observe:

Marquette, ranked 18th in the AP, and 19th in the Coaches poll, is an 8-seed ... which presumably means that the committee felt like they were somewhere between the 29th and 32nd best team in the country. They even had an RPI of 22, and were pushed down to an 8-seed with a tough game against Michigan State.

Louisville's a 6-seed, despite being ranked 12th in the AP and 15th in the Coaches poll. The committee decided instead that they were somewhere between the 21st and 25th best team out there.

You could make the case that Notre Dame's seed is a touch low, though I wouldn't make a major argument about.

And all of this, of course, is beside the point that Syracuse was left out completely, something that I find to be completely beyond justification. West Virginia was left out, too, which is certainly understandable.

There were some top-heavy conferences out there this year (SEC, Big 10, ACC), but I didn't really feel like the Big East was one of them. They got treated like it, though.