By
Steve Kallas (posted by Rick Morris)
You
have to wonder how the NCAA Selection Committee really operates when selecting
a field and seedings and match-ups. Despite
the alleged modern day transparency, some decisions boggle the mind. Also, you have to wonder whether things
coaches say have any effect on seedings and match-ups.
TAKE
WICHITA STATE, FOR EXAMPLE
All
credit to Wichita State for going 34-0 and getting
a number one seed in the tournament. But
they are rightly being criticized (from a win the National Championship
perspective) because, frankly, the next ranked team they beat will be the first
ranked team they beat the whole season (yes, they beat a good St. Louis team when they were
unranked).
Unfortunately,
their coach, Gregg Marshall, took it upon himself (in his us-against- the-world
attitude, not necessarily a bad thing) to make this statement: “Wolves do not
fret over the opinion of sheep.”
Funny
as that may be, you have to wonder if it ever came up in the room when, after
getting their number one seed, it became abundantly clear that Wichita State
would have the toughest road to the Final Four and virtually a zero chance to
go undefeated this year.
Why? Well, if things go as expected, Wichita State, after the traditional
easy first game, may have to beat Kentucky (a four or a five seed
disguised as an eight seed), Louisville (a one or a two seed
disguised as a four seed) and then Michigan or Duke (it says here
Duke).
And
that’s just to get to the Final Four.
So
good luck to Wichita State. But you have to wonder if the dumb statements
of their coach had some negative effect of the view of them in the room. It says here that they don’t make it to the
Elite Eight.
TAKE
LOUISVILLE, FOR EXAMPLE
Rick
Pitino is a Hall of Fame coach and coaches the defending National
Championship. This year, in that new
“American” Conference, Louisville went on a roll at the
end of the year and won their regular season and conference championship. They were ranked in the top five in the
nation.
But
lo and behold, in arguably the dumbest seeding in years, the committee made
them a number four seed.
Why
did this happen?
Well,
again, even though the committee reps will say what coaches say has nothing to
do with seeding, let’s look at what Rick Pitino said after his team won their
conference championship.
Right
after the game, during an interview, Pitino said multiple times that he would
not “politic” the committee for a high seed.
He said he would “leave the politicking to the politicians.” In the middle of all of this, he did some
politicking by saying he thinks that Louisville “should be a number one
seed.”
So
much for leaving the politicking to the politicians.
Yet
somehow, inexplicably, Louisville was seeded as a number
four, a joke in everyone’s opinion except that of the selection committee, the
only opinion that matters for the NCAA tournament.
Hard
to believe that what Marshall of Wichita State and Pitino of Louisville said
did not have an effect on the committee, either consciously or sub-consciously.
WHAT
ABOUT THOSE FIRST ROUND MATCH-UPS?
We
will just look at two. To add insult to
injury (it says here), the committee gave Pitino a first-round match-up with Manhattan College (which, by the way, is
in the Bronx). Manhattan is coached by Steve
Masiello, an on-the-rise coaching star who was 1) a ball boy for Pitino when he
coached the Knicks; 2) a walk-on player at Kentucky when Pitino coached
there; and 3) a Pitino assistant at Louisville for six years.
Both
are unhappy about it and rightfully so.
But,
again, you have to wonder whether this is what the committee does to those who
criticize them. After the
Louisville-Manhattan game was announced, Pitino said that “maybe the committee
is made up of football ADs,” later using the term “soccer ADs, I don’t know.”
Clearly
he does know who is on the committee and was just voicing his displeasure.
But
to give some credit to the selection committee, the second match-up to look at
is Dayton and Ohio State.
For
years, Ohio State has ducked playing
in-state rivals during the regular season.
In fact, Ohio State has only played Dayton (campuses an hour
apart) six times in their history. The
last time was in the 2008 NIT (obviously not a regularly-scheduled game).
So,
these are the kind of games that the selection committee SHOULD go out of their
way to schedule. But, if they admitted
that, then the negative match-ups (Louisville-Manhattan) would clearly have
been done on purpose.
You
get the point.
NCAA
FINAL FOUR
We’ll
go Florida, Michigan State, Oklahoma State (forget their
seed as well) and Louisville, with Michigan State beating Louisville in the Final.
Finally,
if you are looking for that 5-12 upset that always seems to happen, we’ll go
with North Carolina State over St. Louis.
Good
luck in your brackets.
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