By Sean Quinn
Bracey Wright, Chris Thomas, Gary Williams are now the equivalent of that group of kids who line the back wall of the middle school gymnasium during a Saturday night. They showed up for the party, but no one is asking them to dance. And they have no one to blame but themselves.You can argue with some of the seedings handed out on Sunday by the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee, like a four seed to Louisville or a one seed to Washington, but you can’t argue with the 34 at large bids handed out. Teams this year were defined by mediocrity, as most teams played themselves out of the tournament. The term “snub” shouldn’t be used this year because every single team that didn’t appear on the board of 65 teams knows they had their chances and just didn’t take advantage of them. So unless the players of Indiana, Notre Dame, and Maryland were all watching Lifetime Original Television Movies, there shouldn’t have been any tears shed on Sunday night.
When you take a look at this year’s bracket, there are only really three spots for all these so called “bubble” teams. The committee selected 21-10 UAB as an 11 seed, 21-10 Northern Iowa as an 11 seed, and 21-11 Iowa as a ten seed. These are all teams that a legitimate argument could be raised for or against their selection. When looking at the competition of who they were up against to earn these at large bids, however, it’s mediocrity at its finest. It’s like choosing between a prime-time UPN sitcom and any Charlie Sheen sitcom…mediocrity.
Let’s look at Notre Dame’s argument. They were probably the last team out. The Irish finished with 17 wins and were 9-7 in probably the toughest conference in all of America, the Big East. They handed then undefeated Boston College their first loss of the season. They also had wins against three other tournament teams from the Big East, in Connecticut, Villanova, and West Virginia. This marks the fourth time that a team with a winning conference record from the Big East has not been selected and the third time was Notre Dame last year. Favoritism or luck has nothing to do with the non-selection of the Irish, although losing does. The Irish dropped four of their last five. Had they beaten the 11th seeded Rutgers team in the first round of the Big East Tournament they would probably be an 11 seed in the Chicago region right now. The committee paid close attention to a game against tournament-bound UCLA, in which the Irish lost by 10, but were never even close to giving the Bruins a real challenge. That could have been concidered a play-in game and the Irish didn’t show up to fight. Or if they had won just one more close game during the regular season. Notre Dame lost by one point at Georgetown, by two at Pittsburgh, by three at Syracuse and by five at Villanova. The final straw was against Rutgers, that was their playoff game and they blew it. They showed to the committee that they didn’t want an invitation.
Next off the list was probably Indiana. They are the first Big Ten team to have ten wins in conference and not get invited. But how could they? They didn’t show up in the first round of the Big Ten Tournament and got blown out by Minnesota. They had a tough schedule, but you can’t expect to rely on your conference schedule to carry you to the Big Dance when playing in a Big Ten Conference that had a down year. Seven of their conference wins came against non-tournament teams. And these teams like Purdue and Northwestern aren’t teams on the bubble, they were about as close to a bid as Louie Anderson was about as close to a healthy diet. Again, it came down to having to beat Minnesota to get into the tournament and by being outplayed in that game, the Hoosiers told the committee their play spelled N-I-T.
You can then make arguments for the teams in the Mid-American Conference, who again sent only one team to the tournament for the sixth straight year. Miami of Ohio, the regular season champs, had a tournament at large virtually locked up, but they lost to Marshall in the final game of the regular season. Marshall starts as many players as they have wins on the year. The other team from the MAC who didn’t get in was Buffalo. The 22-9 Bulls were a point away. They led the Ohio Bobcats by 19 in second half of the MAC Tournament Championship Game but lost by a point in overtime. The Bulls had eight wins against the RPI Top 100, but losing the MAC Championship Game is like losing a tournament play-in game. The Bulls shouldn’t be steamed, they did themselves in.
For teams like Maryland and DePaul, they just had to win one more game against sub-par teams in their conference. Maryland, despite beating Duke twice, lost to Clemson thrice. Clemson is a mediocre NIT team at best. The same for the Blue Demons. They lost three times to UAB, who got into the tournament, including twice in a span of nine days during March. DePaul was up on the Blazers in both of those games, but let the lead slip away somehow. Had they beaten UAB, they would be in the tournament because they have beaten quality opponents like Cincinnati and Notre Dame. UAB’s best win, however, is DePaul.
It’s easy to say a team like Iowa, who only has one quality win without their best player Pierre Pierce, who was released by the team after several criminal assault charges, shouldn’t be in the tournament. They probably shouldn’t. Any other year they wouldn’t have gotten a bid. This year, however, teams are just begging the tournament committee to not invite them. Perhaps if some teams, like Notre Dame, chose a better non-conference schedule they wouldn’t have to rely so much on late season games. So it’s possible that for the same reason Vin Diesel will soon be in the unemployment line for choosing to star in movies like “Pacifier,” teams won’t be invited to the NCAA Tournament because they choose soft non-conference opponents. For any reason you like, the field is set and the committee did its job and this year Tom Hanks would be proud because there’s no crying on Selection Sunday.