NCAA Tournament Thoughts

STEVE KORNACKI: I don’t think there’s any question that Arizona’s inclusion is the black eye of this year’s bracket. I have no serious complaint about any other team’s selection, but the Wildcats absolutely, positively do not belong in this tournament, or anywhere near it. On Valentine’s Day, they beat UCLA to improve to 18-8 overall and 8-5 in the Pac-10. After that, they won only one game — over Stanford — and lost five, capped by a lifeless first-round loss to Arizona State in the conference tournament. Their RPI ranking is 63. This team had chance after chance to earn a dance invitation over the last month, and failed every single time. I’m baffled why the committee rewarded this mediocrity — especially with so many deserving teams (Creighton, San Diego State, St. Mary’s) left out. The bubble has never been as tight as it was this year; why would the committee waste a precious slot on the Wildcats?

Otherwise, though, I’m fine with the field. Any number of bubble teams would have been far more deserving than Arizona, but they also had chances to earn their way in. San Diego State, who I was pulling for, could have won the Mountain West title game against Utah. They didn’t. They also could have put together a stronger OOC slate. They didn’t. Penn State could have shown up on Friday night against Purdue in the Big Ten quarterfinals. They didn’t. I have no problem with them missing the tournament after that.

At the end of the day, we should just be thankful that college basketball uses a tournament. In a perverse way, screaming about the injustice of Arizona’s inclusion reminds me how vastly superior college basketball’s postseason is to college football’s. Every team that was snubbed tonight had the opportunity to earn its way into this tournament. And at the start of the year, all 347 teams had a chance to earn their way in. I’ll gladly take that over college football, where Utah completes an undefeated season….and gets to play for second place.

HOWARD MEGDAL: Here, here! Agree with all that you said. Some noteworthy things from the bracket:

I was pleased to see the Big East teams get the respect they deserved- five earned top-3 seeds, in addition to the three number ones. West Virginia and Marquette seem right at 6, though a healthy Dominic James lifts the Golden Eagles to a 4, in all likelihood.

In general, I was happy with seeding all aroubd. I thought Minnesota was a clear tournament team- by making them a 10-seed, the committee apparently agreed. Gonzaga is a well-deserved 4, while Tennessee gets a 9 (and an intriguing second-round matchup). Though mid-majors didn’t get the love they should have (we agree on San Diego State- an RPI of 37!), Siena getting a 9 seed was good to see. Northern Iowa and Western Kentucky also both earn 12-seeds- got to love that WKU has a 14-point win over the top overall seed, Louisville.

The four top seeds in the NIT: Florida, Auburn, Creighton, San Diego State. Any of them would have been better choices than Arizona. I really want to know what the justification is here. And a brief NIT note- Cincinnati isn’t in the Field of 32. They were 8-7 in the Big East, and apparently played their way out of BOTH tourneys.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 15th, 2009 at 7:55 pm and is filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.