Read the opposing argument from Babe Ruthless.
Why is it that a conference tournament loss is absolutely meaningless to the so-called best teams in the country (who are SUPPOSED to win), while the same, lone conference tournament loss is a death sentence to mid-major teams, even those that are perceived as the best in conference?
The makeup of THE national basketball tournament is intended to provide the top 65 teams in the nation with an opportunity to compete for the national crown. Built into that is the “automatic bid” process which is designed to guarantee that the best representatives from EVERY conference, not just the “majors,” are given an opportunity to participate.
But what happens if the best team from a mid-major conference does not win their conference tournament?
Before you thoughtlessly give the canned response of “They must NOT have been the best team,” I want to point a very important truth out to you: Any team in college basketball can lose on any given night.
That is not a truth specific only to mid-majors. In the 2009 ACC Tournament, North Carolina (the top-ranked team in the entire nation) lost to Florida State during the semifinal game. Does that mean that Florida State was a better team that North Carolina? Perhaps for that night they were the better team, but the selection committee still saw fit to award North Carolina as a #1 seed in the national tournament.
The selection committee got it right. One game does not determine the worth of a basketball team. They KNEW that the best team in the ACC (and the nation) was not Florida State, or even the eventual ACC champion Duke Blue Devils (who would go on to still be seeded lower than a team within the very conference whose championship they had won). Instead, they recognized that the team which had proven better over the length of an ENTIRE SEASON was actually North Carolina. They accepted the fact that any team in college basketball can lose on any given night, and did not penalize the Tar Heels for a single loss during their conference tournament. At the end of the day, they acknowledged that North Carolina was STILL the best team in the ACC.
That same logic applies to EVERY conference in the NCAA.
If the selection committee is left to naming team number 65 in the tournament, and it is a toss-up between the 19-11 NINTH place team in the Big East, or the 23-8 FIRST place team in the MAC – a team that just so happens to lose the conference tournament championship to an underdog – it should be the FIRST place team in the MAC that receives the final at-large invitation. Failure to do so diminishes the value of the season that was played, and instead places far too much credibility in a single game.
The 2007 Akron Zips serve as the PERFECT example of this type of flawed logic, where too much credit is given to one single incident. During the 2006-2007 season the Zips played to a very impressive 26-6 record as they entered their conference championship game. They had already soundly defeated the only other 20-game winner in their conference that year (Kent State) in an impressive 61-54 performance during the MAC semifinal, and were slotted to face the fourth-seeded Miami Redhawks in the championship matchup.
The Zips carried a two-point lead into the final 10 seconds of the game, but then Miami’s Doug Penno hit a desperation three-pointer to steal the game away from the Zips.
Should the Redhawks have been punished for beating Akron? Absolutely not! They had earned the automatic bid for their conference, and deserved the reward of being invited to the March Madness tournament. However, Akron should also not have been punished because of one buzzer-beater three that cost them its conference championship. Throughout the entire season, they had established themselves as the best team in the MAC, and only lost the tournament because of a desperation shot as the clock ticked to 00:00.
The Zips WERE punished, though, making them the only school in NCAA history with at least 26 wins to NOT be invited to postseason play. They did not receive an at-large invitation because the selection committee instead felt that teams such as the ACC’s seventh place Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets were more deserving. Never mind the fact that the Yellow Jackets finished the regular season with a record of only 20-10 (needing to win their final two regular season games just to finish at .500 within the conference), lost in their FIRST game of the ACC Conference Tournament, and finished behind SIX other teams within their own conference.
Because Georgia Tech played in a major conference, their resume was deemed as being better.
As an aside, both Miami AND Georgia Tech lost in their first round matchups of the tournament. Akron may not have done better, but they would not have done worse!
I can only hope that this year’s selection committee will take a more sensible approach that is less influenced by the hype and overrating of a major conference strength of schedule. When a team cannot even finish better than ninth in their own conference, they do not deserve consideration as one of the best teams in the country, especially if there is another conference LEADER still available.
Did the Zips have a lot of quality wins that year?
As I recall, that GT team did have plenty of quality wins and it’s what got them in the tournament.
Somehow I knew a little GT hate would evoke a response from Loyal Homer!
Georgia Tech had some quality wins, but they also had quality losses… a LOT of them!
They had their shot to compete against Duke, North Carolina, etc., and they failed to prove they deserved consideration among the best. It’s as simple as that – they tried and failed. When they got into the tournament, they proved AGAIN that they weren’t worthy of consideration, as they lost to UNLV in the first round.
Akron, on the other hand, was definitively the best team in the MAC, and deserved an opportunity to compete against the so-called big boys.
It is not Akron’s fault that they didn’t have two games each scheduled against Duke, UNC, etc. They beat the teams they were scheduled to beat far more frequently than did Georgia Tech.
Any team that goes 6-8 in conference leading up to the final two games of the regular season, and then follows that up with a first-round loss in their conference tournament, has already proven that they aren’t among the elite teams in the nation. Hands down – Georgia Tech wasn’t good enough, and they didn’t deserve the at-large bid!
It was a talented team featuring first round draft picks Javaris Crittenton (before he met Gilbert Arenas), current 76er stud Thaddeus Young, and Golden State sharp shooter Anthony Morrow. Yes, they underachieved but doesn’t it say something that a team can underachieve and still make the tournament?