First off, although I hate agreeing with Billy Packer, I thought the selection committee did very well this year. Last year was an absolute train wreck that left me wondering how the hell they came up with it (Syracuse's 5-seed, Tennessee's 2-seed, some of the bubble team inclusions, etc.). It's funny though because that train wreck turned out to produce one of the best NCAA stories ever (George Mason), so in hindsight I say thank you. The bottom line is this - being on the committee is an unenviable task every year because no matter what you do, you'll be criticized somewhere. This year, I thought the seeds were pretty much on (nobody more than 2 seeds higher or lower than I would have thought) and I can see why they made some of the decisions they made at the bottom.
A big "Fuck you!" goes out to that bag of douche known as Joe Lunardi. Not only is it now painfully obvious your stupid ass gets tipped off (check the comments section of the recent Lunardi post to see where I noted just hours before the brackets were unveiled where Joe once again moved Arkansas from out of nowhere to in, not to mention his suspicious Stanford inclusion), but his smugness and arrogance was atrocious this year. Luckily, Joe's lone miss of the bracket was my Alma Mater, Illinois.
Anyways, I caught the douchebag on the Mike & Mike Show this morning (which was fantastic, by the way, with great interviews with Mike Brey of Notre Dame and Tom Izzo of Michigan State) bitching about Illinois' inclusion. Look at their profile! RPI is 29, 11-8 in conference, 33rd non-conference SOS and 24th overall. Alarming, I know, because this team is not that good, but you can't deny the numbers. Yes, they didn't have the great wins, but they didn't lose any bad games. Hey, Joe, if you're going to argue against them, at least get your facts right. The past two days, the douche has been claiming Illinois is 3-10 against the tournament field. Excuse me, Joe, look again. Illinois beat Indiana (twice), Michigan State and... Jackson State, Florida A&M, Belmont and Miami (OH). Seven wins. Now, I'm not saying these were "good" wins per say, but they played challenging competition in the pre-conference season. They were also had 8 top-100 wins and didn't lose outside of the top-100. If you want to make a point against them, at least get the facts right you stupid asshat.
As for the teams that are doing the crying today...
Syracuse - I'll echo JH's sentiments on the Orange. Play somebody! Do I think the Cuse should have made the field? Yes, I do. Do I feel bad they didn't? Absolutely not. In fact, it got a good chuckle out of me. This is a team that didn't leave the state of New York until January 7th. How ridiculous is that? They played on the road at Canisius (I don't even know where that is but Google assures me it's in New York) and down to MSG to lose to Oklahoma State. Even the quality teams they brought in beat them (Wichita State and Drexel). Their RPI was at 50 and they lost a few games they shouldn't have - at UConn and at St. John's. Tough shit, Jimmy Boeheim. Enjoy your NIT games at the Carrier Dome. You don't enjoy leaving home anyways.
Drexel - Here's where I disagree with JH completely. To me, Bruiser Flint should be sending Jim Larranaga flowers for people considering his team. This profile was all smoke and mirrors enhanced due to George Mason's run last year and the recent success of the mid-major. Listen, take the name "Drexel" off the top of the profile and replace it with, say, "Providence". Does this even get considered out of the Big East? They lost to Rider and William & Mary (they shut down William on the perimeter, but Mary was a beast in the low post that game*). Do I have sympathy for Drexel? Absolutely. Bruiser Flint should be standing on the soapbox bitching. I love what they did in the non-conference and it'd be a shame if it deterred them and others from doing it in the future. But this team lost some bad games and they were 1-5 against the teams above them in the CAA (VCU, Old Dominion and Hofstra). They had their chances. I don't think their snub was a crime against mid-majors the way it was last year to Missouri State and their RPI of 20.
Kansas State - Listen, Huggins, I understand your drunk ass bitching for your team but call up Boeheim and play somebody. You played the 227th best non-conference schedule this year. Congrats. You won at Texas, beat Oklahoma at home and beat Texas Tech on a neutral court. But you play in the Big XII North, so you used that crutch to 10 hollow conference victories. Go out and beat Kansas or something, then file a complaint.
Florida State - I'm not touching this one because I am assuming there will be a whole post dedicated to it. Let me say this - I think it's a shame this team isn't getting much snub talk. This is a good profile and their 5-game skid game without Toney Douglas and now he's back. If you want to take out a Stanford or an Arkansas (which, by all means, go ahead), I'd throw FSU at the top of the list to replace them.
Now let's talk about the dumbest decision made of the week, courtesy of NBC. One-hour of The Office on Thursday competing against the NCAA games. Brilliant guys, just brilliant. Who the fuck made that call? I'd wager that 1/3 of The Office viewership would be "sports fans" and now a good chunk of them won't be watching that special. I, for certain, will be placing that one in the DVR bin. This isn't Grey's Anatomy here, a good chunk of your viewers still have their testicles attached. Now, if you were to bitch that Grey's and the games overlap, well, let's just say Tim Hardaway does not approve of your bitching. Terrible decision by NBC though. Just atrocious.
More to come later, I hope.
-- RK
(* - Joke courtesy of Deadspin comments section. It was just too good to resist.)
7 comments:
Meh. Drexel may not have had as strong of a profile with Syracuse not making the tournament, but I still think they dropped the ball on this one. I think deep down, the committee wasn't ready to say that the CAA is on the same level as the MVC.
Even though Drexel beat Creighton. In Omaha.
I think the CAA got more hosed on the seeding of VCU and ODU rather than by the commmittee not including Drexel. To me, those teams proved that they were far better than Drexel as shown by their head-to-heads against them.
And I do believe the MVC is better than the CAA simply because the bottom of that league is so tough. The bottom half of the MVC all had RPIs between 100 and 150. Indiana State beat Purdue and Butler, Drake beat Iowa and Iowa State.
That special hour of The Office is 2 re-runs.
Nah. No need for a full post on FSU's snub. Just a few comments.
I will agree with Leonard Hamilton's statement that he needs to get this program to the point where the decision is out of the committees hands. This team had it's chances to make themselves a lock and didn't.
I like Leonard a lot, but this team absolutley has to get to the next level. He has two years on his contract and if we can't get past this point, it may be time for a change. Some people are already calling for his head.
Now I am not going to let this go without some ripping of the committee. They tell a team your schedule is too weak one year and than penalize them for losing on the road in non conference to teams on the 2 and 3 lines the next year. They'll consider injuries to key players for some teams (Stanford) but dismiss it in other cases. A bad loss to UNC gives them a reason to bury a teams at large chances, but the team that takes a worse beating to Florida gets in.
The committee hasn't made sense for a long time and never will. It's time to get beyond the bubble. No true ACC bubble team have gotten in with puss like Craig Littlepage representing the conference (nice job taking care of your boys with a 4 seed).
-PS
Anonymous1 - Thanks for the heads up on The Office. I was furious at first.
PS - An interesting point on committee members... Littlepaige (UVA) got his boys in at 4, Silve (SEC Chair) snuck Arkansas in and Stanford's AD was on the board too.
UNLV was robbed with its seeding. Ditto Nevada.
Is it safe to say that anybody who references Grey's Anatomy characters is approaching asshat territory?
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