Sports - Tournament Grumblings

Lunardi beat the DeHavenator 52-49. If I had put Maryland in (they were my first team out), I would have pulled off the upset 49-48. I probably let my bias against Maryland blind me to reality. It's a lesson to learn. I have no problem with Maryland being in. My issue is Arizona. It was the one team Lunardi missed. He had Creighton and I had St. Mary's or Creighton. I would have taken St. Mary's, but either way, I see no rational argument for Arizona. Arizona was 19-13. They played just two non conference road games and were 0-2 (UNLV, Texas A&M). They were 2-9 on the road with weak wins against Oregon St. and Oregon. They finished on a 1-5 slide including their third loss of the year to Arizona St. when they met in the tournament. The have some good wins against UCLA, Washington, USC, and Kansas, but they were all at home. The neutral court Gonzaga win is probably their most impressive. Still, with a 19-13 record, a poor RPI, a terrible road record and an awful finish to the season, their inclusion is very peculiar. Arizona has a streak of 24 consecutive tournament appearances and I wonder if that factored into the decision. They also drew Utah which has to be one of the weakest 5 seeds to dress up for a tournament. It's almost like they manufactured that matchup to justify Arizona's inclusion hoping they would take care of an easy opponent.

Saint Mary's, by contrast, was 26-6 and boasted a much higher RPI. They were 13-5 away from home (9-3 road, 4-2 neutral). They lacked big wins (Providence, San Diego St. both on neutral courts), but they were dominant with Patty Mills on the court and he has now returned from his injury. During his injury St. Mary's was 3-3. Take away that time and they were 23-3. The committee has said that they take injuries into account. They must not have considered it in this case. I have no problem saying that St. Mary's could have gone 19-13 with Arizona's schedule (they had plenty of cupcakes too). I highly doubt that Arizona would have gone 26-6 (or especially 23-3) with St. Mary's schedule give Arizona's road woes. Even if you don't take St. Mary's, Creighton's case was better than Arizona's.

I heard an announcer say that the committee said that when judging a team, their RPI is not a factor, but that the RPI of the teams that they beat is a factor. Perhaps this was incorrectly reported. However, if not, this is completely absurd. They are in essence saying that the RPI system is valuable and is used, but when looking at a team the only RPI that they don't use is their own. Huh? I believe they outthought themselves on this one. So, when they looked at Arizona, they considered all the RPI's of all the teams they beat, but not the RPI of Arizona themselves. This could explain the seemingly inexplicable decision. So, Arizona's RPI is important, it's just that it's important to UAB, Stanford, Washington St., UNLV, and all those teams that beat them, but it's not important to Arizona. It's clear that the committee prefers a team with a mediocre record that has a few big wins (even if they have some bad losses) to a team that has a great record, but did not play too many good teams. I disagree. There are teams that know how to win and teams that aren't sure how to win. 19-13, unless it's against an unbelievable schedule, which Arizona's was not (36 SOS), leads me to believe that the team is not sure how to win. By the way, San Diego St., another team I would have taken over Arizona, had a SOS one spot ahead (35) of Arizona and a much better record (23-9).

Other than Utah, BC, and Texas receiving a little better seeds than I think they deserved, no other problems with the selection. Arizona is the one that nobody predicted simply because they didn't deserve it.