Where to Draw the Line

Every year on Selection Sunday there are the short videos of teams celebrating once their name is announced in a section of the NCAA Tournament bracket.  As the program changes over to analysis the focus quickly shifts to those on the outside looking into the bracket.  However, I have never seen the analysts as animated as they were last night, not necessarily for who didn't make it but for the ones that got the final slots.

The Conference USA regular season champion, UAB, couldn't win their own conference tournament and didn't have a single signature victory this season.  In the past I have always heard the selection committee talk about three signature wins as a large part of a team's resume.  I can't even find a starting place for finding three key wins let alone one.  For VCU I can at least locate some key wins over George Mason, ODU, and UCLA.  The Rams of VCU seemed on the bubble before stumbling down the stretch by going 3-5 in their last eight games.  Somehow they didn't play their way out of the tournament.  One of the biggest losers of the tournament will be USC.  The Trojans had fourteen losses on the year while playing in a weak Pac-10 conference.  With strong wins in and out of conference over Texas, Tennessee, and Arizona, I can see where they have flexed their muscles for the committee.  But again with so many losses in such a weak conference, I can't see how the Trojans made the cut.

There isn't a team hurting more from these decisions than Colorado.  The Buffaloes had the big wins needed for a tournament birth in wins over Kansas State(three times), Missouri, and Texas.  They finished the season strong at 5-2 in their last seven games.  Their only negative draw would be their lack of a quality non conference schedule.  But at the time that matters, when most teams play themselves out, Colorado played their way into the big dance and got the biggest snub of all.

Compelling arguments could be made for both Virginia Tech, with their big win over Duke, or Alabama, who tore through the SEC after struggling in their non conference schedule. But at the end of Selection Sunday, the bubble isn't what matters and doesn't produce champions.  When the play-in games start Tuesday night the only people still talking about the bubble will be those that could have, should have, but did not make it.  In fact, the tournament changed to 68 teams this year, so not one team thats being talked about in these discussions would be in the tournament in the past.  As we go forward and talks rise about adding more teams to the tournament, there will always be the same arguments over the last few in and out, while the top teams will still take home the hardware at the end of the March Madness.