Tuesday’s Games
Home |
Visitor |
Spread |
Akron |
Bowling Green |
9.0 |
Ball St. |
Northern Illinois |
6.8 |
Boise St. |
Air Force |
11.4 |
Central Michigan |
Eastern Michigan |
5.4 |
Colorado St. |
Utah St. |
-2.0 |
Davidson |
Fordham |
14.5 |
Dayton |
Rhode Island |
9.6 |
Illinois |
Michigan St. |
-1.7 |
Kansas St. |
Oklahoma St. |
2.3 |
LSU |
Missouri |
10.7 |
Maryland |
Nebraska |
17.3 |
Ohio |
Western Michigan |
5.7 |
Ole Miss |
Mississippi St. |
-1.8 |
Purdue |
Penn St. |
3.0 |
Saint Joseph’s |
St. Bonaventure |
-6.9 |
San Diego St. |
New Mexico |
16.7 |
Syracuse |
North Carolina St. |
3.1 |
Tennessee |
Arkansas |
-0.3 |
Toledo |
Miami (O) |
10.2 |
Vanderbilt |
Kentucky |
-9.8 |
Virginia |
Notre Dame |
3.3 |
Wake Forest |
North Carolina |
0.3 |
The Captain’s Table
Top Games on TV Tuesday
Time (EST) |
Network |
Home |
Visitor |
6:30 PM |
BTN |
Purdue |
Penn St. |
7:00 PM |
ESPN+ |
Akron |
Bowling Green |
7:00 PM |
SECN |
Tennessee |
Arkansas |
7:00 PM |
ESPN2 |
Syracuse |
North Carolina St. |
7:30 PM |
CBSSN |
Dayton |
Rhode Island |
9:00 PM |
ESPN |
Illinois |
Michigan St. |
9:00 PM |
ESPN2 |
Virginia |
Notre Dame |
9:30 PM |
CBSSN |
Colorado St. |
Utah St. |
Captain’s Musings
Where the NCAA Selection Committee Gets It Wrong
The NCAA Men’s Basketball Selection Committee has issued its first preliminary seeding of top 16 teams, and we at the PiRate Ratings are happy to say we predicted all 16 teams on the correct seed line. Predicting seed lines and teams accepted to the Big Dance isn’t all that difficult, because the NCAA clearly shows its cards. With the exception of Team 68 and occasionally Team 67, determining in advance which 68 teams receive Dance Invitations is almost as exact as multiplication and division.
Usually, when our Bracketology, or our friends on the Internet that supply their own Bracketology, are finalized on Selection Sunday, the only differences in the brackets come on the lower seed lines. Many times, predictions for a seed line were accurate, but the Committee had to move a team up or down one seed in order to obey the NCAA’s rules about facing an opponent from the same conference in the opening rounds.
Basically, the process is done correctly every time, and when Team number 69 is left out, no matter who that team is, the folks at CBS and ESPN immediately cross-examine the Committee Chairman as if a major slight has taken place. That is done strictly to get the public to keep watching their Selection Sunday special show, because face it, the public could just as easily wait 30 minutes and quickly see the entire field in the bracket on their computer or phone.
We have no issues with the Selection Committee every year. They do a great job, and it isn’t easy to get a dozen highly opinionated people to agree on whether Teams 67, 68, 69, and 70 deserve to be in or left out. The consensus usually is right.
Our problem hangs entirely on the process itself, and we have one major complaint that we believe needs to move high up on the priority line. That statistic is where a team finishes in its own conference.
Why continue to even have conference play if a team that finishes in third place sweeps the 7th place team and then watches the 7th place team get an NCAA bid, while they have to go to the NIT. Do you think this doesn’t happen? Unfortunately, this, or something similar, happens almost every year.
Take a look at South Carolina last year. The Gamecocks handily beat Florida in Gainesville, and they wiped Ole Miss off the floor. They split with Mississippi St. All told, USC finished a game ahead of the two Magnolia State teams and two games ahead of Florida. Yet, they were the team left out of the NCAA Tournament, while the three teams below them in the standings all went to the Big Dance.
What good is having a conference race at all, if it means absolutely nothing, other than that the regular season champion is guaranteed a spot in the NIT if it fails to make the NCAA Tournament?
If we were named the Commissioner of College Basketball, there would be changes made. First, we would flip the rules on automatic NCAA Tournament bids. We’d award an automatic NCAA Tournament bid to the regular season champion of each conference and then guarantee an NIT bid to all Conference Tournament winners that did not receive an NCAA Tournament bid.
Let’s look at a possibility that would make this rule show how much better the tournament might be flipping the automatic bids. Look at this year’s Southland Conference. Stephen F. Austin is talented enough and well-coached enough to challenge for a Sweet 16 appearance if not more. The Lumberjacks won at Duke in one of those games where the zebras tried their hardest to give the big team the win. SFA players were whistled for fouls just for occupying the same city block in Durham, while Duke players had to commit felonious assault before they were whistled for fouls. Still, SFA won the game, and had this game been played with totally unbiased officials, the Lumberjacks would have actually blown Duke off the Cameron Indoor Stadium floor.
SFA (12-1/21-3) is three games ahead of its nearest conference foe. They are likely to enter the Southland Conference Tournament at 28-3 and no worse than 27-4. And, for this incredible run, the Lumberjacks will be guaranteed only an NIT bid. They will have to win the SLC Tournament to get into the Field of 68. What if a team like Nicholls State catches SFA on a cold shooting day and upsets the Lumberjacks? Nicholls will go bye bye in the opening game, while SFA will probably be forced to play a road NIT game and receive the same type of home-cooking officiating that they faced in Durham.
Under our system, The Lumberjacks would still go to the NCAA Tournament, while Nicholls State would be guaranteed that NIT bid or be allowed to accept the CIT bid if they preferred. The Colonels might finish four games in back of SFA, and after a 20-game conference schedule, when one team finishes 19-1 in the league and the second best team goes 15-5, it is quite clear which team is better and more deserving of the NCAA bid.
The same holds true in the Power Conferences. Let’s look at the crazy Big Ten race this year. Currently, three teams, Ohio State, Indiana, and Michigan, are tied for 12th place at 5-7 in the conference. Minnesota is a half-game ahead of the trio at 6-7. However, if you look at the criteria used by the NCAA Selection Committee, Minnesota is barely on the bad side of the Bubble and looking at the NIT, while the other three teams are in the Field. The Big Ten plays a 20-game conference schedule, so if any number of these four teams get in the Field, the preference should be to take the team(s) that finish higher in the standings. 20 games are enough to determine which teams are better than which teams. Using advanced metrics is great, and we are devoted Sabermetric devotees, but we realize that actual results trump theoretical results.