MITCHELL BLATT

Mid-majors recently complained about not having many mid-majors make the tournament, and Michael Wilbon went insane like a politician, arguing that the NCAA should be investigated by politicians for not having enough mid-majors make the tournament. Well, I’ll tell you why not very mid-majors made the tournament: They aren’t as good at basketball as real schools are.

Mid-majors typically play in weak conferences against weak schedules while tournament teams like Arizona play in power conferences like the Pac-10 where they go 21-13 then beat mid-majors in the tournament.

Wilbon was on PTI today arguing about a bunch of no-name mid-majors that never win the tournament when he brought up Arizona to say they didn’t deserve to make the tournament–well, they didn’t, but with 65 teams, you have to put some that don’t deserve it. Anyway, Arizona was playing Cleveland State in round two, a mid-major from the Horizon League, whose best team, Butler, lost in round one to the SEC’s LSU Tigers, and Arizona beat CSU to advance to the Sweet Sixteen. (CSU made the tournament by defeating Butler for the Horizon League championship, but Butler won the regular season title.)

Like Butler and Cleveland State, mid-majors invariably lose early in the tournament.

Other mid-majors to have been dismissed in the first two rounds include Eastern Tennessee State, Portland State, Virginia Commonwealth, Binghamton, Radford, Stephen F. Austin, Cal State-Northridge, Robert Morris, and Morehead State. These are the teams that pollute brackets with nonsensical abbreviations like SIE, UNI, USU, CSN, and SFA. These teams get the chance to dance and usually embarrass themselves.

Mid-majors always get guaranteed slots just for winning conferences like the Mountain West, Missouri Valley, West Coast, and Western Athletic. The conferences with the stupid abbreviations like those of their schools. Conferences like the MAC, WAC, SWAC, and CRAP. Conferences that you only see when you turn on ESPN 2 at 1 am.

With 64 teams, there’s always going to be a lot of mid-majors to celebrate after winning their prestigious plastic trophy at their conference championship game then be happy with first round exit.

The teams that matter like UConn, Duke, UNC, Pitt, Syracuse all come from power conferences because power conferences actually know how to play basketball. Power conferences have recruited players and everything. Are you really concerned that Western Noridge Bingingham State Tech A & M is being denied their right to beat UConn?

We have a prestigious tournament here that has to decide the champion of college basketball. We have more important things to worry about than mid-majors. That’s like complaining about which junior senator gets to run for president on the Green Party platform.

To all you mid-majors out there: Leave the basketball to the big boys and go back to producing student-athletes.

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