Sunday, March 05, 2000
Handicapping the NCAA field
Bubble teams lament the one that got away
BY MIKE DeCOURCY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Xavier has Virginia Tech. South Florida has Marquette. Notre Dame has Providence. Every team wondering if it will be included in the NCAA Tournament has that one game it wishes to have back, the one fans, players and coaches are certain could be the difference between becoming one of the 64 and No. 65.
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TOP SEEDS
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Midwest
• 1. Cincinnati
• 2. Ohio State
• 3. Iowa State
• 4. Maryland
South
• 1. Arizona
• 2. Florida
• 3. Syracuse
• 4. Indiana
East
• 1. Duke
• 2. Temple
• 3. LSU
• 4. Oklahoma State
West
• 1. Stanford
• 2. Michigan State
• 3. St. John's
• 4. Tulsa
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FIELD OF 64
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• America East: Hofstra
• Atlantic 10: Temple, Dayton
• ACC: Duke, Maryland, North Carolina, Virginia
• Big East: Syracuse, St. John's, Miami, Connecticut, Seton Hall
• Big Sky: Weber State
• Big South: Winthrop
• Big Ten: Michigan State, Ohio State, Purdue, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin
• Big 12: Oklahoma State, Iowa State, Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, Missouri
• Big West: Utah State
• Colonial: Richmond
• Conference USA: Cincinnati, Louisville, DePaul
• Ivy: Penn
• Metro Atlantic: Siena
• MAC: Ball State
• MAC: Kent
• Mid-Continent: Valparaiso
• MEAC: South Carolina State
• MCC: Butler
• Missouri Valley: Southern Illinois, Indiana State
• Mountain West: Utah, UNLV
• Northeast: Robert Morris
• Ohio Valley: Murray State
• Pac-10: Stanford, Arizona, Oregon, UCLA
• Patriot: Navy
• SEC: Florida, Kentucky, Tennessee, LSU, Auburn, Vanderbilt
• Southern: College of Charleston
• Southland: Sam Houston State
• SWAC: Alcorn State
• Sun Belt: South Alabama
• Trans-America: Samford
• West Coast: Pepperdine, Gonzaga
• WAC: Tulsa, Fresno State
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ON THE BUBBLE
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• Arizona State
• Bowling Green
• Fresno State
• Xavier
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The thing is, each of those teams also has another game that mattered more. Xavier had St. Bonaventure. South Florida had Louisville. Notre Dame had Syracuse. Those were opportunities for each team to show its tournament-style mettle to the members of the NCAA selection committee. None failed miserably in that circumstance. But none succeeded, either.
And that is why each team enters this week aware its one clear avenue to the NCAA Tournament -- perhaps its only avenue -- is to claim the championship of its conference tournament and the automatic bid that is included.
There will be so many tools made available to the selection committee members when they gather this week in Indianapolis to put together the tournament field that will be released March 12. They will have access to reams of data designed to differentiate between the teams that are candidates for at-large berths.
On paper they can begin to look the same. Put them on the court, though, and they can separate themselves in a single evening.
Consider the night of March 1. With an 18-8 record, and RPI rating of 53, victories against NC State and SMU and the distinction of being one of two teams that led the Cincinnati Bearcats at halftime, Tulane remained in the hunt for an NCAA berth. Then, it took the court at The Pyramid in Memphis and was throttled, 77-49, by one of the two Conference USA teams with a sub-.500 record. The discussion of Tulane as an NCAA team ended quietly.
About the same time, Villanova was wrestling at home with Providence, which is buried at the bottom of the Big East standings but lately has made itself a nuisance to teams in the middle of the league that are fighting to stay in the NCAA hunt. The Wildcats trailed Providence in the final two minutes, but recovered to squeeze out a 77-72 victory that lifted their record to 18-10. Although they've not beaten an abundance of great teams,they at least kept themselves in contention.
Xavier was playing a road game at St. Bonaventure in which a victory would have made the Musketeers difficult to exclude, even with a low RPI rating (71), because of their victories over UC and Louisville. A close loss would have been enough in such difficult circumstances for a team that had more than five top 100 wins, but the Musketeers' one-point defeat left them short. They now need to find their way into a game against Temple during the A-10 tournament and win that game.
The reality is the NCAA Tournament teams mostly choose themselves. The committee's most significant job is to seed the field and place the teams in the four regions, creating the most fair and balanced brackets possible.
Even with a season's worth of evidence regarding which teams belong in the NCAAs and which do not, however, this last week can determine so much about what will show up when the bracket is revealed. Conference tournaments are an excellent dress rehearsal for the NCAAs, putting borderline teams under single-elimination pressure to see how they'll respond.
There are teams that can take advantage of that opportunity to right some of the wrongs they've committed in the past few months, and particularly in the past few weeks. These are among the teams that need to hustle:
• Virginia (Atlantic Coast Conference, 18-10). The Cavaliers like to think of themselves as an NCAA Tournament team, and coaches in the ACC have lobbied on their behalf, but an NCAA Tournament team ought to have better than a xx-xx record against the RPI top 100. And a tournament team certainly would not allow a struggling bunch like Wake Forest to invade its homecourt and steal a victory, which the Demon Deacons did Thursday night.
This league howled over its treatment in receiving three NCAA bids
last season, but unless NC State or Wake Forest wins the tournament, its chance to avoid a second straight three-team year rests with the Cavaliers. They are extremely light on quality victories and will have the chance to get one or two against the ACC field. They may need two.
• Wisconsin (Big Ten, 15-12). The Badgers did great work in the non-conference portion of their schedule, beating Top 25 clubs Texas and Temple, but haven't been able to approach that level of play in the Big Ten.
Still, the Badgers are ranked 36th on the RPI and have a 6-7 record against top 50 teams. That's more top 50 wins than 20 teams ranked ahead of them, including No. 4 Duke. They gave Michigan State fits in each of their games this season.
To get two wins in the Big Ten tournament, they'll have to beat one of the league's upper-echelon teams. That might be enough to get the Badgers a bid.
• Villanova (Big East, 18-10). The Wildcats show you their 18 wins as proof of their worthiness, but let's be honest: if they hadn't played in the Rainbow Classic and built up some better numbers, they'd be a team no one considers.
Why? They are 1-6 against the top 50. The highest-ranked team they defeated was No. 41 Seton Hall. They are one game above .500 in a conference ranked just seventh.
If they're in, it's because there's nobody left to pick.
It's likely those conference rankings are going to cause some consternation for fans of Conference USA, if there is, indeed, anyone who follows the league as a whole.
C-USA ranks third according to the RPI, behind only the Big Ten and SEC, but is likely to meet the same fate as last year's No. 2-ranked league, the ACC. Aside from Cincinnati, Louisville and DePaul, Conference USA has been unable to scare up another presentable tournament candidate. Three bids is the max, unless somebody else can claim the league tournament in Memphis this week.
That road to the tournament stays open until the final buzzer.
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