WASHINGTON — It’s honestly perfect that TBS chose U2 as its theme music for the NCAA Selection Show Sunday. Because the selection committee couldn’t have shown itself to be more brainlessly out-of-touch with what the NCAA Tournament should be or how we should evaluate which teams deserve to make the field in 2018.
Yes, every year there are snubs, and every year there are questionable bids awarded. But the people in charge have not only plenty of advanced metrics at their fingertips, they have the institutional knowledge of how college basketball works, how stacked it is against teams from outside the major conferences. The committee puts those teams through far more hoops to have any chance at grabbing one of the 36 at-large bids available, and still, every year, denies worthy teams in favor of big name programs with questionable resumes.
When did actually winning games stop mattering? St. Mary’s finished 28-5 this year. That’s nine more wins — nine! — than Alabama, and 10 fewer losses. They beat a good New Mexico State team (a 12-seed in the field) that dealt then 10-0 Miami its first loss. And they won at Gonzaga, a legitimate Top 10, maybe Top 5 team that enters March Madness 30-4 a year after taking North Carolina to the wire in the national title game.
“They didn’t play a very challenging schedule, even nonconference,” said Bruce Rasmussen, Creighton University athletic director and the head of this year’s selection committee, of Saint Mary’s during the selection show Sunday evening.
How about Middle Tennessee? The Blue Raiders went 24-7.
“Middle Tennessee played some tough nonconference games, they just didn’t win them,” Rasmussen said.
Let’s evaluate that claim. Yes, MTSU lost neutral site games to tournament-bound Auburn and Miami and wrong-side-of-the-bubble USC by a combined 14 points. They also beat two SEC teams that each beat Alabama in their only meetings with the Crimson Tide — Ole Miss by 19 (which beat ‘Bama by a dozen) and Vanderbilt on the road. The Blue Raiders also beat tournament-bound Murray State on the road.
Now, let’s talk about what Rasmussen didn’t say — that power conference schools pad their schedule with home games, dodging potentially threatening road matchups. As a mid-major team, you might be able to get a few big schools to schedule you, if you’re lucky. But they’ll basically never travel to your place. Syracuse, for instance, didn’t play a single true road game until ACC play started — the Orange won four road games all year.
At least Alabama scheduled Arizona in Tucson (they lost), but you can’t evaluate their strongest nonconference road win, because they don’t have any. The Tide also have a neutral site loss to dreadful Minnesota, a home loss to non-Top 100 UCF, and a blowout defeat to fellow bubble team Texas in a game played in Birmingham. Want to guess how many road wins Alabama has all year? Two.
This is why we have advanced metrics. BPI is meant to strip away a lot of that bias. BPI rates Saint Mary’s the 26th-best team in the country, Middle Tennessee 48th. Syracuse and Alabama come in at 52 and 54. UCLA is 55th (Providence, a whole other story, is 65th).
We’re also told the committee values how teams are playing of late, coming into the tournament, a better distillation of their true selves. Middle Tennessee was 8-2 in its last 10 games, while St. Mary’s was 7-3. Syracuse was 5-5; Alabama was 4-6.
Oh, right, we should talk about Oklahoma. OU finished the year 2-8 in its last 10 games. The Big 12 is a murderer’s row, with no easy games except maybe Iowa State, but, oh yeah, Oklahoma lost that game too. Like Alabama and Syracuse, the Sooners finished with a losing conference record (which in and of itself should be an automatic disqualifier). So why are they in?
“The games in November and December count the same as the games in February and March,” said Rasmussen, in contradiction with everything else the committee claims to go by.
So, to be clear — you need to schedule tough nonconference opponents, unless you’re in a power conference. You need to win road games, except you don’t actually have to schedule any if you’re in a power conference. And you’re given credit for playing tough teams — even if you don’t beat them — so long as they come in conference play, which of course you can’t control, other than by moving conferences.
The truth is, the committee pulls out whatever metric it needs at whatever time it needs it to justify letting big name programs into the field, year after year. The system is broken and tilted to reward power conference schools. It’s not a meritocracy, and the oxymoronic attempts to prove it so only strip bare the hypocrisy of the entire process.
Two years ago, Monmouth scheduled a nonconference gauntlet that included road games at UCLA, USC and Georgetown. They beat both the Bruins and Hoyas, and though they lost to the Trojans in LA, they matched up again in the AdvoCare Invitational, where the Hawks won the rematch (they also beat Notre Dame and lost to Dayton in that event). Finishing 28-8 with the 27th-toughest nonconference schedule in the country, they lost by three points in their conference tournament final … and missed the NCAA Tournament.
Even mid-majors that make the field often get snubbed in other ways. Last year, Saint Mary’s was 13th in BPI, while Wichita State was 15th (15th and 8th, respectively, in the KenPom rankings). Their reward? A 7 seed for Saint Mary’s, against fellow mid-major VCU, and a 10 seed for Wichita State, against another mid-major in Dayton. Not only were both teams massively underseeded, they were pitted against other nonpower conference schools to clear one of them out of the way, preventing all four from possibly upsetting a blue blood.
It turns out, all Wichita State had to do to shine in the committee’s eyes was join a bigger conference. After going 31-5 and having a Top 10 KenPom ranking last year, the Shockers got a 10 seed. They moved to the American Conference and went 25-7 this year, and are currently ranked 20th by the same KenPom ratings.
This year, they’re a 4 seed. What a lesson for the rest of college basketball that is.
