Time To Dance

Time To Dance
By Bruce Marshall

Wow! Misplaced aggression, perhaps? We can only wonder what sort of reaction UAB and Virginia Commonwealth would have received from the talking heads at ESPN and elsewhere if they had actually done something wrong, like break NCAA rules. Or perhaps rob a bank. As it was, however, their mere inclusion into the NCAA's Big Dance field of 68 inspired quite a stream of vitriol from the analysts, the sort we have rarely seen on Selection Sundays past.

"It's an injustice!," cried Dick Vitale regarding Colorado's exclusion from the field of 68. "Are you kidding me?," continued Dickie V. "UAB, or Virginia Commonwealth, over Colorado, to make the field? That's like a beauty contest between Roseanne Barr vs. Scarlett Johansson!" The resident Dookie on the ESPN set, Jay Bilas, continued the theme. "These are horrible decisions," said Bilas of the inclusions of the Blazers and Rams into the field of 68. "Do Selection Committee members know the ball is round?"

Although we thought the best line of all in the Selection Sunday special on ESPN was offered by none other than Hubert Davis, who didn't seem quite as personally offended as were Bilas and Vitale about UAB and VCU having their Big Dance tickets punched. When Vitale went off on another rant and campaigned for the creation of a new "Commissioner of College Basketball" job, nominating Bilas for the post, he mentioned being "young" as one of Bilas' top the qualifications, which prompted Davis into action. "Young!?!?!", bellowed Davis, and the room broke up laughing, even Bilas. As did I at home, recalling the long-ago days when I was a referee, and worked some of young Bilas' high school games three decades ago when he was at Rolling Hills High in Southern California. Bilas might seem young to Vitale, but the ex-Dookie is no spring chicken any more, as Hubert Davis reminded us all.

Those who believed the expansion of the field to 68 teams might eliminate some of the past controversies on Selection Sunday had forgotten about one constant in such formats; there will always be debates about which teams should make the field, if the tournament were expanded to 96, 128, or 256 teams. Even in the latter, teams 257, 258, and 259 are going to feel jilted. Always. And thank goodness we didn't go to the 96-team format that was seriously discussed last spring before a more-realistic expansion of three teams to 68; imagine if it would have been a 96-team field, where we would have been debating the merits of Hofstra, Ole Miss, Duquesne, and Valparaiso on the "cut-line" instead of UAB and VCU. Although it might have been quite a kick to hear Vitale spew venom at the Selection Committee for keeping Kent State out of the field of 96.

Still, we have some questions about the Selection Committee's work as well; indeed, we much preferred the Bracketology puzzle that we put together prior to the official announcement. We knew the Big East was going to get 11 teams into the field, but we thought that one of the long-standing seeding requirements was to make sure that teams from the same conference could never meet until the Sweet 16 at the earliest. Yet, Big East reps UConn and Cincy are in the same pod at the Washington, D.C. sub-regional as West seeds 3 and 6, respectively, which means they would meet in the round of 32 (now called the "third round") if both win their openers. That's not supposed to happen, and we (and ESPN's "Saint Joe's" Lunardi) made sure our brackets kept the Big East reps apart until the Sweet 16 at the earliest. Which should have been easy enough for the Selection Committee to do as well.

And upon further inspection, we really have to wonder about the qualifications of the Selection Committee, with only a handful of legit basketball people (including UC Riverside AD Stan Morrison, and Utah State AD Scott Barnes) in the group of ten mostly administrative-types who compose its membership. We are also not terribly impressed with Ohio State AD Gene Smith, the former Notre Dame DE and new Chairman of the Selection Committee, who hardly articulated with much clarity when defending the Committee's selections with CBS' Jim Nantz and Clark Kellogg. Smith was also the first Committee Chairman to ever remotely suggest that "style points" were indeed a factor in the selection process, which right off the bat suggests the group of ten didn't watch Penn State's 36-33 win over Wisconsin in Friday Big Ten Tourney action. Unless it was actually consulting old coaches such as Boyd Grant and Bob Knight, or the ghost of Ray Mears, sorts that would have found that Nittany Lions-Badgers game to be pure bliss.

We don't want to get too bogged down in the Selection Sunday minutiae; we've got games to discuss and analyze for this week. Still, we thought last year's work by the Committee (which featured 8 of the 10 involved in this year's decision, including Gene Smith himself) displayed a lot more consistency, opting as it did, among other things, to reward champions of mid-major level leagues who lost in conference tourney action. Agree or disagree, at least the Committee seemed to be following some sort of guideline for its decisions a year ago. This year, it was hard to tell what sort of criteria was being emphasized to make the final decisions at the edge of the field. Was it RPI? Strength of Schedule? Last 10 games? Quality wins? Bad losses?

Granted, the Committee was presented with a choice between quite a few frogs (and we don't mean TCU Horned Frogs) this season. To wit: 13 teams enter with 11+ losses, by far the most since the tourney expanded to 64 teams in 1985. Seven teams enter with 13+ defeats (the previous high was a mere three). And five teams enter with 14 losses or more; there had been a grand total of six of those in the 25 previous Big Dances between 1985-2010.

If this is an inexact science (as it most surely is), we would rather have the Committee members (and especially its Chairman Gene Smith) simply admit as much, rather than acting as if there is some divine formula known only to this collection of well-paid pencil-pushers. We were also a bit surprised by a few developments, which included:

Virginia Commonwealth...Not to belabor the Rams' inclusion in the field, but even we, as supporters of the CAA, were a bit surprised to see VCU make the final cut. The Rams rallied to make the Colonial Tourney final, but still enter the Dance having lost 5 of their last 8. RPI and SOS numbers were decent, but the only non-conference win of note was over UCLA. Apparently, the Committee had the CAA ranked much stronger than other mid-major loops. Either that or the dreaded BracketBusters results from three weeks ago turned out to be the deciding factor; curiously, winners of some key Busters games such as VCU were rewarded, while some of the higher-profile Buster losers (Wichita State, Missouri State, Saint Mary's) were kept out of the field.

Was it possible that most Committee members didn't bother to pay close attention to the mid-major ranks until the BracketBusters?

UAB...We indeed had UAB included in our field of 68. And this selection was consistent with last year's apparent criteria that rewarded the regular-season champions from mid-major league that lost in conference tourney action. But where as all such teams were invited a year ago, this year the Blazers from C-USA were the only such squad, while the likes of Missouri Valley regular-season champ Missouri State and WCC counterpart Saint Mary's (both having reached the finals of their respective conference tourneys, unlike UAB, which was KO'd in its first game by so-so East Carolina) were each denied. Perhaps C-USA was simply rated a bit higher than the other leagues, but the Blazers' only non-conference win of note came against VCU, with losses to the likes of Arizona State (Arizona State!) and Georgia, as well as a no-shame setback at Duke. UAB did have an RPI in the mid-20s (how, we wonder?) to eventually justify its selection, although Gene Smith spewed then usual platitudes instead of mentioning the strong RPI when defending the Blazers' choice to Nantz and Kellogg.

(The inclusions of VCU and UAB, as noted, drew the most scorn from the TV analysts, although we must point out that none other than Bilas admitted that both were capable of winning multiple games if things broke correctly for each in the Dance.)

Illinois...The Illini's inclusion, as a nine-seed to boot, speaks to the influence the Big Ten must hold over the Committee. Either that or the Committee simply decided to reward non-conference work over all other factors when it came to the Illini (which would be inconsistent with any VCU or UAB rationale, would it not?). The win over North Carolina in the ACC-Big Ten challenge in the very early part of the season (when the Tar Heels hardly resembled their eventual selves) was obviously a nice chip for the Illini to cash on Selection Sunday. We had thought that Illinois' 10 losses in its last 16 games (that's basically the last half of the season) made a much better case to keep it out of the field.

Southern Cal...We were thinking that the numerous unsightly losses on the Trojan profile (Bradley, TCU, Oregon State, Oregon...twice, plus a 20-point beatdown courtesy middling Metro-Atlantic entry Rider), and six defeats overall to sub-100 teams, would cancel out the many high-profile scalps (Texas, Tennessee, UCLA, Arizona, Washington) that SC claimed. Plus HC Kevin O'Neill's suspension for a verbal altercation (and we have the specifics) with Arizona fans prior to the Pac-10 semis vs. the Wildcats last week. O'Neill has been reinstated, but we thought it was simply too difficult of an at-large case to make for SC with all of ugly losses and 14 overall defeats.

Colorado...At the risk of offending Vitale, we didn't have the Buffs in our field of 68, either, although they were most definitely our first team out of the mix. To put CU under the microscope, we must note that two of CU's three wins over Kansas State came while the Wildcats were performing in a funk this season, and there were plenty of warts on the Buff profile, including a recent loss at Big XII cellar-dweller Iowa State on the heels of the Texas upset. Losses to Georgia, San Francisco, Harvard, and New Mexico in non-conference play, and the lack of a signature non-league win (we're not sure the 90-83 win over state rival Colorado State suffices) didn't help, either. But we also have to wonder about Committee politics; maybe there were no advocates for the Buffs, who are about to bolt the Big XII for the Pac-10 (soon to be Pac-12), despite the presence of Big XII commish Dan Beebe in the group of ten. Perhaps the Committee collectively decided that the Buffs deserved a snub for breaking ranks with Beebe's conference?

Virginia Tech...Poor Seth Greenberg, again denied on Selection Sunday. We had the Hokies into our field, but there was some rationale to keep VPI on the wrong side of the cut-line, too. Despite that high-profile win over Duke two weeks ago, VPI was still only 4-4 in its last eight games. And the Hokies lost most of their significant non-conference contests, although they did score a 10-point win over Penn State. It was apparent that the Committee didn't think much of the ACC outside of Duke and North Carolina. The only other loop member to receive invites were Florida State, downgraded to a 10 seed in the Southwest, and Clemson, forced to participate in one of the 12 vs. 12 play-in games. Meanwhile, the Big Ten was given every benefit of the doubt with its 7 entries, although we did have Michigan and Michigan State correctly pegged on the 8th and 10th lines, respectively. The Hokies' win over Penn State apparently didn't help.

When the smoke finally cleared, we missed on three at-large entries, keeping Southern Cal, VCU, and Illinois out of our final projected field of 68, instead with Virginia Tech, Saint Mary's, and Alabama making our final cut. Although we are genuinely excited about a collection of "live" lower seeds that could cause some trouble this weekend. Among the most notably would include...

Belmont (SE 13)...Coach Rick Byrd's Bruins have made some noise in the Dance before, nearly scoring a major first-round upset over Duke a few years ago. And regional observers believe this is Byrd's best of many good Belmont teams, one that rolled through the Atlantic Sun and blew out the North Florida Ospreys by 41 in the conference tourney finale. Belmont likes to go uptempo and enters the Dance very hot, having won 12 in a row, and note its 18.4 ppg win margin this season. Good balance with the nation's 11th-best scoring offense (80.4 ppg), led by soph G Ian Clark, who hits 44% of his triples, and ample depth to better help Byrd's fast-paced style (nine players average at least 14 minutes). Competitive in losses to crosstown Vanderbilt and in a pair vs. Tennessee, including a narrow 1-point setback vs. the Vols. Perhaps the biggest style clash of all first-round matchups when going against Wisconsin.

Wofford (SE 14)...Remember the Terriers from last season? Coach Mike Young's SoCon Tourney champs returns much of the same team that almost upset Wisconsin in the first round last year and enters the Dance on the ascent, with 8 straight wins. The Terriers played a tough non-conference slate, losing to Minnesota, Clemson, Georgetown, and Xavier (all competitively), and beating George Mason, with their "Minnesota connection" led by 6'6 PF Noah Dahlman (20 p pg). This senior-heavy lineup could cause problems for opening-round foe BYU.

Oakland (W 13)...The Golden Grizzlies also return to the field fr om a year ago, when they lost to Pitt in the first round. Oakland likes to run and has the added advantage of a legit big, 6'11 C Keith Benson (18 ppg & 10 rpg), on the blocks, while UMKC Kangaroos transfer PG Reggie Hamilton (17.4 ppg) ignites the transition games. The Raiders, er, Golden Grizzlies, won at Tennessee and played Michigan State to within a point at East Lansing, but lost by double-digit margins vs. West Virginia, Purdue, Illinois, and Ohio State. Does Oakland have enough defense to cope with Texas in their opener at Tulsa on Friday? Now in its 27th season under the watchful eye of vet HC Greg Kampe.

Morehead State (SW 13)...The Ohio Valley Tourney champs cannot contain their excitement at getting a crack at in-state Louisville in the first round at Denver on Thursday, hoping to avenge a defeat to Rick Pitino's Cardinals at the same stage two years ago. Pony-tailed leading scorer (17.6 ppg; 64.4% FGs) and nation's top rebounder (14.5 rpg) 6'8 PF Kenneth Faried has drawn the attention of NBA scouts, while jr. G Deonte Harper added 27 points and 11 rebounds in the OVC title game vs. Tennessee Tech. The Eagles were competitive in spread-covering losses at Florida and Ohio State early in the season.

Northern Colorado (W 15)...Under-the-radar Big Sky champ makes its first-ever Big Dance appearance after moving up to Division I ranks just four years ago, with what was the nation's worst RPI. The no-nonsense, senior-laden lineup has helped build the program from the ground up, first under HC Tad Boyle (now at Colorado) and now under B.J. Hill, promoted from his assistant's position after Boyle moved to Boulder last spring. One of the seniors, G Devon Beitzel (21.4 ppg), is a well-kept secret in the region, and the Bears can be dangerous if the triples are falling (three of the five starters hit better than 34% beyond the arc).