The Bullcrap Parade

Once again the NCAA selection committee has proven that the NCAA is broken, and clue-less.

Yesterday was ’selection Sunday’. A day when college hoops fans wait to see how their favorite team faired in the all so idiotic selection process for the NCAA Basketball tournament. It has all the elements of the BCS — college football’s “playoff” — baloney-fest, hand-wringing feel-goodism of Academia, and cheap dinner theater. Yes it’s that bad.

Once again the selection committee makes excuses for leaving teams out that are better than many of the automatic bids. The automatic bids are there for “fairness”, so that all conferences get a shot at the title even though most have a better shot at a title in Crew, Lawn Bowling, or Squash.

RPI = CYA

RPI is supposed to measure how strong/weak your play was over the season. It’s complete bunk.

Did the best 34 at-large teams get in, or the 34 at-large teams with the best numbers?

The selection committee says that RPI is not a factor, they also say it is a factor … when they need to justify their bad selections or leaving someone out.

“The reality check is that (Arizona’s) strength of schedule was extremely high,” said Tom O’Connor, the chairman of the NCAA selection committee. “It was way up there. Even though the RPI is a data point collection, it does tell you something.”

Don’t ask me, I have no idea what that means. I am pretty sure it is nothing more than duck-and-dodge the question using semantic back-flips.

What is the point

Is the point to really have the best 34 at large bids? If so, why? The at large bids are for teams who did not win their conferences. Why should they even get to play? They can’t even win their own conferences.

Oh wait, Virginia Commonwealth did win their regular season conference and then lost in their tournament. But wait! There were two teams to whom this happened. Illinois State won their regular season as well, and lost in the tourney.

Seems to me the regular season is a waste of time, let’s just have playoffs. Wait, my bad; we need the “data collection point” RPI and that requires playing meaningless seasons. Nice signal to send out their, NCAA.

Or is it a reward for a good season? Who knows? The NCAA sure doesn’t make it clear. On one hand they say it’s a reward and the kids should get something — as if an education and playing a game were not enough — out of the year. An “experience” they call it. What bullcrap.

It seems that the NCAA wants to have it both ways. They want a National Title and big money maker err student experience.

did anything good happen

Well yes, the Big 12 was able to get in 6 teams. For the first time a Big 12 team with a .500 record in conference made it. There were a few feel-good stories such as Baylor making it back whilst in the middle of rebuilding a team. Texas A&M made it, they are building a team.

Georgia played their way in, even though the SEC tried to screw them by making them play two games in the same day against a team that had almost two days rest. Ole’ Miss lost that game, and guess who did not make the tourney? Yep, Ole’ Miss. No excuses for them, they lost to the 7th seed after getting two days rest while UGA played two games in one day. Some justice is always good.

First timers club has some members as well: Amerian, Maryland Baltimore County, UT-Arlington, and Portland State are all newcomers to the dance.

And there is less griping this year, than most. Well it’s done.

Tags: ncaa, basketball, tournament, sweet 16, final 4, selection committee