CURTIS HENRY
Distribution Manager
Sunday night confirmed one thing that has always been thought about the NCAA tournament selection committee: It doesn’t know what it wants. The experts who project brackets have no idea what the committee wants. The fans have no idea what the committee wants. Even the teams have no idea what the committee wants.
Just ask the Monmouth University Hawks.
Snub central
For years the committee has preached one idea: Challenge yourself outside of conference play. Each team in Division I basketball has the opportunity to pick and choose who it wants to play outside of its own conference. That usually amounts to 10 to 12 games a year that are hand-picked by each school.
Very few teams in Division I took it upon themselves to schedule tougher nonconference games than Monmouth. Monmouth’s non-conference schedule ranked 20th in the nation, and in those 11 games it accrued a record of 8-3. Key wins for the squad included Georgetown University, University of Southern California (USC), University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), University of Notre Dame and Rutgers University.
Monmouth also suffered narrow defeats to USC (the second matchup between the two teams) and University of Dayton. It’s worth mentioning that none of these seven contests were on Monmouth’s home floor. Monmouth won 17 games on the road or at neutral sites this season — the most in Division I.
The one thing holding Monmouth back? The team plays in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC).
Haven’t heard of the MAAC before? You aren’t alone.
The MAAC typically sends only one team to the big dance each year, and is one of the weaker conferences in college basketball. When Monmouth, the regular season MAAC champion, lost in the MAAC tournament to Iona, it lost any chance it previously had of entering the 68-team field.
It didn’t matter that the team had won 27 games on the year. It didn’t matter that the team had scheduled tough non-conference games. It didn’t matter that the team was ranked 55 in the Rankings Power Index (RPI) or that the team was one of the best road teams in the country.
Its conference kept them from getting a bid. The tournament committee would rather send Syracuse University, Vanderbilt University or University of Tulsa (really thoug? Tulsa? The team that just lost to University of Memphis, twice?) to the tournament than a Monmouth team that is just as good, if not better.
What kind of hypocrisy is it to say that teams need to play tough non-conference schedules, but then not reward teams that play (and perform well against) a tough non-conference schedule?
It is just another strike against the corruptive group that is the NCAA. While Monmouth was, unfortunately, left out, the last four teams in figured to be Wichita State, Vanderbilt, University of Michigan and Tulsa. Each of those four teams will participate in play-in games to reach the first round of 64.
Meanwhile, University of Kansas was named the top seed for the tournament. Other one seeds were named, in order, as University of North Carolina (UNC), University of Oregon and University of Virginia. It was thought by many that Big Ten champion Michigan State would snag a number one seed, but tournament selection chair Joe Castiglione said differently.
“It was a close call, but we just thought that Michigan State was the fifth overall seed,” said Castiglione on the Selection Sunday special late Sunday night.
Filling out your bracket
As Thursday and the round of 64 is fast approaching, there are several key trends that you might want to take into account while filling out your bracket, per ESPN stats and info.
If you’re looking for a first round upset pick, look no further than the first four games that will be played Tuesday and Wednesday. Each of the last five years has seen one team from one of these games advance past the round of 64. Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) in 2011 would eventually reach the Final Four, La Salle University (2013) and University of Tennessee (2014) would each reach the Sweet 16. Both University of South Florida in 2012 and Dayton in 2015 would lose in the round of 32.
Another important trend to note is that in the 24 meetings between six and 11 seeds since 2010 there has been an even 50-50 divide. Tying into the first fact, both of the first four games on Tuesday and Wednesday (Wichita vs Vanderbilt, Michigan vs. Tulsa) are matchups of 11th seeded teams. The other 11 seeds, University of Northern Iowa (UNI) and Gonzaga University, also represent legitimate chances for an upset.
UNI draws a six seed in Texas that, at times during the Big 12 season, looked out of sorts. UNI also won games against UNC and Iowa State during the regular season, two games that definitely bolster its resume.
Gonzaga hasn’t had the signature wins this season that UNI has, but has played tough against top-tier competition. A one-point loss to Texas A&M University and a five-point defeat to University of Arizona showed that this year’s Gonzaga squad can be a problem in the tournament; it can hang tough with anyone.
One last thing to take into consideration with this year’s NCAA tournament is the presence of a Cinderella team in the Final Four. The last six seasons have provided us with six underdog stories of teams seeded seven or higher reaching the Final Four.
In 2011, VCU made a Final Four run as an 11 seed, and Butler was a Final Four team as an eight seed. 2013 provided Wichita State making a Final Four appearance as a nine. 2014 saw eight seed Kentucky square off with seven seed University of Connecticut in the National Championship. Last year, Tom Izzo’s seventh-seeded Michigan State Spartans danced all the way to the national semis.
In a year as wide open as this year in college basketball, it’s fair to expect these trends to continue.
Let the madness begin.
Tags: Sports, NCAA, Division I, Basketball, March Madness