Periscope: Getting mad in March – my.hsj.org
Thursday, March 17, 2011 By Brennan O’Neil
UAB and VCU: In. Colorado and Virginia Tech: Out. – Brennan O’Neil
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Year after year, college basketball season rolls around and 325 Division I teams start out with one common goal: to make the NCAA Tournament. After the committee released this year’s bracket, I, along with just about everyone else, was shocked. It was the most upset I have ever seen the analysts on all the sports channels. At one point, ESPN analyst Jay Bilas questioned the committee by saying, “I wonder if they know the ball is round.” This may seem like extremely harsh criticism, but Bilas was not out of line. Many complaints were made, but the bulk of the controversy surrounded four teams: Colorado, Virginia Tech, Alabama-Birmingham (UAB), and Virginia Commonwealth (VCU). I was quite outraged to see that the committee had left Colorado and Virgnia Tech out of the tournament, while putting UAB and VCU in. The teams are supposed to be judged based off their overall body of work; however, after this decision, this cannot be the case. Colorado entered Selection Sunday with a 20-13 record, including three wins over Kansas State, who eventually got a five seed. They also beat Texas who was the top ranked team in the country for a few weeks. Colorado by far had the best resume` of the bubble teams, and quite honestly, they were not even being looked at as a bubble team; the consensus was they were solidly in the tournament. Virginia Tech came in with a solid record of 21 wins and 11 losses. They had a winning record in their conference and a huge win over a number one seed, Duke; this win came while Duke was the top team in the country. They had also beaten Penn State and Florida State, who both got in over them. These two teams that were viewed as solidly in were left amazed after the brackets were unveiled and UAB and VCU had gotten in over them. Why was this such an injustice? Let’s start with UAB. Entering Selection Sunday, UAB was not even being talked about. They did not have a single win against the top 50 and had failed to prevail in the Conference USA tournament. VCU was another team not even receiving bubble talk. They finished fourth in the Colonial Athletic, which is a questionable finish for a mid-major conference. It leaves you wondering what the committee was even looking at. Junior Zach Ott responded to this controversy. “I thought Colorado definitely should have been in. They beat a lot of good teams.” Junior Ben Reisinger said, “Colorado and Virginia Tech deserved to make it. I couldn’t believe they got left out.” At the end of the day, the complaint is not that UAB and VCU are bad teams; the complaint is that teams are supposed to judged off their body of work, but this does not seem to be so. This is not fair for the kids at Colorado. Coach Tad Boyle said, “I feel bad for our five seniors… they’ll never have an opportunity to play in this tournament.” The teams that got in are all good teams, but it is frustrating to see teams that are more deserving of bids get left out in favor of teams that were obviously chosen to help out the little guys. VCU proved themselves to the critics by defeating Southern California (USC). This was a play-in game for the final four at-large teams. In the other play-in game, UAB was handed defeat by Clemson.