Just one year after finally getting it right …
Just one year after TV talking heads Billy Packer and Jim Nantz sat in front of a national audience whining like 2-year-olds wanting a pacifier because BCS conferences didn’t get enough teams in the men’s basketball tournament …
Just one year after the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament Selection Committee finally showed some respect for the so-called “mid-major” conferences …
They screwed it up … again.
Purdue and Illinois are two of the most undeserving teams from a BCS conference to receive a bid to the NCAA tournament since the field expanded to 65 teams. A number of teams — both BCS schools and mid-majors — were more deserving of those bids than the Boilermakers and the Illini.
Let’s take a look:
Purdue (21-11, 9-7 in the Big Ten): Among Purdue’s non-conference victories are nine over teams that aren’t playing in the NCAA. The two tournament-bound teams the Boilers beat are Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and Virginia of the Big East. The latter game was played at Purdue. This is important. But more on that in a minute.
Purdue played four non-conference games on the road, losing three, including at Indiana State, which finished dead last in the Missouri Valley Conference.
So, the only feather in Purdue’s cap before the Big Ten season began was a home victory over Virginia.
During the Big Ten season, Purdue managed to defeat Michigan State and Indiana at home. That’s it. No victories over Wisconsin or Ohio State, the top teams in the conference. No road victories over anyone other than bottom feeders. Purdue also lost at 9-22 Minnesota. Very underwhelming.
Illinois (23-11, 9-7 in the Big Ten): Illinois’ non-conference schedule doesn’t look all that bad because it posted a 4-1 record against mid-majors that qualified for the tournament. Of course, those four are Jackson State (16 seed), Florida A&M (play-in game), Miami (Ohio) (14 seed) and Belmont (15 seed). Ooh, that’s impressive. The one really good mid-major the Illini faced was Xavier; Illinois lost.
Illinois also racked up eight more victories over non-NCAA tourney teams and managed to lose both of its non-conference games against BCS tournament teams — Arizona and Maryland.
During the conference portion of its schedule, Illinois defeated Michigan State and Indiana at home. No victory over Wisconsin. No triumph over Ohio State. No road victories over anyone of note. The only other bright spot here is Illinois avoided any embarrassing losses. In five tries the Illini racked up five victories over Northwestern, Minnesota and Penn State. I can see how this made a favorable impression on the selection committee.
Then the Illini upset Indiana in the Big Ten tournament.
In summary, Illinois gets in the NCAA tournament because it has two wins over seventh-seeded Indiana and one win over ninth-seeded Michigan State.
Purdue gets in because it beat IU, Michigan State and a No. 4 seed, Virginia (all at home).
Now, just to prove this isn’t all about the “Power” conferences vs. the mid-major conferences, I’m going to suggest that a third team — this time a non-BCS school — doesn’t deserve its bid.
Brigham Young (25-8, 13-3 Mountain West): Honestly, outside of the conference the best team BYU defeated was Oral Roberts. Also, BYU lost two of three against Mountain West conference champ UNLV. There are no quality victories anywhere. No road wins of note. No victories over BCS schools. Nothing. I still can’t believe this team was ranked in the Top 25 this season.
So, I have identified three undeserving teams who received bids. Here’s three who should have:
Appalachian State (25-7, 15-3 Southern Conference): Here’s all you need to know about Appalachian State: The Mountaineers won on the road at both Vanderbilt (No. 6 seed) and Virginia. That’s more impressive than anything Purdue, Illinois and BYU accomplished.
Drexel (23-8, 13-5 Colonial): Much already has been debated about Drexel. All I will say is winning at Villanova and Syracuse speaks much louder than beating Virginia, IU or Michigan State at home.
Missouri State (22-10, 12-6 Missouri Valley): There are two things you need to know about the Bears.
1. Missouri State 66, Wisconsin 64. Purdue couldn’t do it. Illinois couldn’t do it.
2. Purdue loses to Indiana State. Missouri State beats the Sycamores twice: once by 20 and once by 30.
Enough said.
One final irritation, thanks to the selection committee: I prefer not to see mid-majors facing other mid-majors in the first round.
Butler paired with Old Dominion, Nevada-Creighton, BYU-Xavier aren’t necessary.
Butler (5 seed) could be facing No. 12 Arkansas, instead. No. 12 Old Dominion could be facing No. 5 USC. No. 9 Xavier-No. 8 Kentucky would be a better matchup. No. 7 Nevada and No. 10 Texas Tech or No. 10 Creighton vs. No. 7 Boston College.
But, what would happen if all those mid-majors beat their BCS opponents?
More whining for sure.
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9 users commented in " How the NCAA Screwed Up the Men’s Basketball Tournament … Again "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackGood article. You pretty well nailed it. Clearly the selection committee was flat out threatened to not let good mid-majors in because of what they did last year. The midmajor matchups prove that as you have pointed out and it is so blatant and obvious as to the Selection commiittee’s intent to get rid of as many mid majors and save as many majors from defeat as possible. and Arkansas, and Vanderbilt, and stanford. Thanks for writing about the obvious.
Good article and you could have gone even further. It’s time for the NCAA to recognize a gain of approximatley 50 1-A Basketball programs over the past 10 years and reorganize the tournament. Expanding to 68 or 72 teams, with 4 or 8 play-in games, would certainly get some of the “bubble” teams in. Of course, you could expand to 256 teams and someone would always have a gripe!
So, why doesn’t a team that goes 25 - 8, beats AFA twice (even on their home court) is MWC regular season champions deserve a bid? Winning 25 games in any conference during any season is a note worthy accomplishment. You said, “There are no quality victories anywhere. No road wins of note.” What about the two wins agains AFA (which killed Stanford and Standford gets a bid with its lame record). Don’t forget one of BYU’s wins against AFA was on the road, breaking the nation’s longest home court winning streak. That seems rather note worthy, wouldn’t you think? The win was enough to bump them up into the top 25. So you are telling me a team that finishes their regular season ranked in the top 25 doesn’t deserve a bid? Sounds like you’re drinking the same Koolaid the selection committee is.
gkunk got it right with the koolaid comment. I think anyone in the top 25 deserves a bid. BYU had the 15th toughest schedule in the nation. That is an assessment by the commentators. BYU was the closest loss to UCLA outside the pac-10. No other non pac ten team came as close to UCLA without winning than BYU. You say drexel should get in they were 23-8 overall and 13-5 in confernce. BYU had two less conference losses and BYU won two more games than Drexel. Drexel in it over BYU! YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING ME!!!!!!! Don’t get me started on Missouri State who went overall a big FAT 22-10. Come back when you want to make a REAL argument. psh! Missouri St. Judas Priest!!!!!!!
What an ill-disguised backlash against the mid-majors, particularly the Missouri Valley Conference, which seems to be being punished for making Billy Packer look like a horse’s ass last year. Particularly perceptive in noticing the first-round pairings designed to get rid of as many mid-majors as possible. Why not give Creighton and Nevada the opportunity to advance against another sad sack sixth-place BCS team. You use Purdue and Illinois as your prime examples, I would say Arkansas and Stanford did little to deserve their bids. Arkansas was about to fire its coach in February, but maybe that’s not a good example because Hog fans also want to fire their football coach, who won 10 games last year.
gkunk and dflake:
The way Air Force played the last couple of weeks, there are 100 teams in DI that could have won at Air Force. You basically are trying to say that two victories over a team that is in the NIT and a 13-point loss to UCLA makes BYU worthy of the NCAA. If one uses that logic, the case for about a dozen other teams that didn’t make the NCAA tournament is strengthened. Additionally, there are quite a few regular season conference champions not in the NCAA tournament — some with better conference records than BYU. That’s not much of an argumet, either. As far as the Top 25 goes, you must remember those polls are not based on anything like the RPI or other ratings mechanisms. They are personal opinions of sports writers and broadcasters or coaches and, as such, are not even considered when the selection committee makes its picks.
I was shocked at the inclusion of purdue, illinois, stanford, arkansas, Georgia tech, and others. overall, I think the committee decided to kiss butt to the bcs once again. I thought the rpi rankings were created to aid in selection, but now the ncaa has decided to throw that system out the window. Last year Missouri State was snubbed despite having an RPI of 21. Once again this year they are dubiously ommitted. And non-bcs teams must play it out so that bcs conferences can have more teams advance. pathetic.
I think if a team is in the rpi top 40 they should automatically be in. That still leaves room for about ten or so “at-large” bids. if we look at the RPI top 40 for the last 7 years, this has mostly held true. in 2001, mississppi state (rpi-40) was left out. in 2003 unlv(40) was out. Also in 2004 LSU(38) was passed over. ‘02 and ‘05 saw all top 40 teams get in. Now to ‘06. The Missouri Valley had six teams in the top 40 (wow) so MO State (21) and Creighton (39) got snubbed. Also getting axed were Hofstra (30) and Cincinnati (40). Now this year, MO State (36) and Bradley(38) are again snubbed; as well as Air Force (30).
All this while “power” conferences barrells are once again scraped for crap like purdue and stanford. 7 ACC teams? wtf!!! 4 big 12!?!? There is no way to explain why a conference like the MVC which has good teams top to bottom (all posted winning non-conf records, usually pretty good ones at that) and then tests its teams with a grueling conf sched (all teams play each other at least twice). That is why the Valley’s RPI is better than the Big12 and barely below the Big East’s. And yet BE gets 6 teams and the B12 gets 4 and still Syracuse(rpi 50) & Kansas State(56) are whined about. MVC got a lousy 2 teams in.
yep, it sucks.
Of course this is not accurate, because Minnesota, not Illinois, upset Indiana in the Big Ten tournament.
Oops,
My mistake, I thought that this was 2008.
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