Only it doesn’t determine a national champion

SCOTT JACOBS

Selection Sunday usually  brings us our annual list of snubs — teams that guys like Dicky V look at and just shake their head, but never can I ever recall this much outrage over the teams that didn’t get in, compared to the handful of final teams that did.

Virginia Tech, Colorado, and St. Mary’s amongst others got the shaft from the newly christened 68 team field today in favor of schools like UAB and VCU.  Abbreviations that might as well have stood for BCS to the Hokies, Buffaloes, and Gaels amongst others.  Because they got left out of the dance, for a team that maybe didn’t deserve it.  Sound familiar?  The only difference between college hoops and college football is that the team that gets left out isn’t a top 2 caliber team, it’s closer to 30 or 40.

So while I feel genuinely sorry, especially for Seth Greenberg who literally called out the committee soon after, wondering aloud if there was some kind of conspiracy against his team, the reality is, these aren’t elite teams that are getting chewed out.  These are the fringe teams, teams that have their moments, but don’t put together anything close enough to resemble dominance.

That’s what makes the BCS different from college hoops.  The BCS means there is no playoff, which means there are no fringe teams, because if you’re not great, you land in a bowl, because there are 60 zillion of ‘em.  Without a tournament the 40th best team in the country has no beef, just a sub-par bowl.  But with college hoops, there are 68 teams that get to dance, which gives them a crack at winning a national championship. Hey, it’s a chance.

But these aren’t schools that are leaders in the clubhouse for a national championship.  There are no TCU’s, no Auburns, no Miami’s and down the line we go.  We’re not comparing undefeated schools to 1 loss schools.  We’re looking at teams that barely finished .500 in their conference.  Schools with non-conference schedule strengths mired 3 times beyond what NCAA Football has teams.

That said, there can be a beef made about college hoops’ own little devil, and that is the RPI.  Like the BCS most people don’t even understand how the RPI works, but like the BCS it holds a lot of water if you get in or not.  Now if you’re a really quality team you’ll get in, because you beat the teams you needed to, scheduled quality opposition on the road, and held your own in conference play.  But if you’re just decent, RPI is huge.  It’s like your college essay when applying for school.  You’re basically sitting there on the bubble with all these other similar applicants and your RPI can put you over the top, or drown your chances.

345 schools compete in men’s college hoops, division 1.  That’s a lot.  So the NCAA has this formula called an RPI.  Sound familiar?  Of course it does.  But in the NCAA’s defense, there’s more than just the ‘eye test’ and strength of schedule to weed out that many teams for such a high profile tournament that has grown leaps and bounds over the years.  They need a number.  That’s where the RPI comes in.  Ratings Percentage Index, or as they probably will start calling it in Blacksburg, Ridiculously Penalizing Idiocrasy, holds a lot of water in the NCAA’s selection pool.  Which has pundits like Jay Bilas and Dick Vitale fuming.

From Rivals.com: “The RPI (Rating Percentage Index) is a measure of strength of schedule and how a team does against that schedule. Created in 1981, the RPI is a tool used in selecting and seeding the 68 teams for the NCAA Men’s basketball Division I tournament. RPI data includes games against Division I schools only.”

“Can you think of any team that’s ever gotten in with resume of UAB,” said Bilas, blasting the same school that once took out Kentucky in an epic second round shocker.  It was on a Sunday, March 21, 2004, when the Blazers knocked out then number one overall seed Kentucky, sending shockwaves throughout the college hoops stratosphere 76-75. I remember, because I watched that whole game and could not believe it.

That said, Bilas has a point.

UAB lost to Arizona State, Memphis (twice), Duke and Georgia. But they did beat Arkansas. O wait, that only matters in football.  Whoops.  Yet with no resume polishing wins, UAB somehow had an RPI of 31.  But how?  They were 1-4 against top 50 competition.  Sure against 51-100 they were 9-3, which looks pretty good, until you realize that of the 68 teams, really only half are at larges.  Which means that those kinds of wins just aren’t that impressive.  And while a strength of schedule rating of 77 doesn’t seem that terrible when compared to what could have been as low as 345, it doesn’t warrant any consideration, considering they didn’t beat any of the good teams they faced.

What about Virginia Tech?

They beat Duke, FSU, and Penn State, but hung around in close losses to North Carolina and Purdue.  Do we look at that?  If it matters who you play — and not whether or not you beat them, does it matter if you lose valiantly rather than horribly?  Or are we just collecting numbers we find on the side of the road and just inputting them in a machine and then using 10 men in a committee room to sort it all out?

In other words, the Hokies have more impressive wins.  But their RPI is 60.  They’re strength of schedule is right down there with UAB’s at 74. They were just 2-5 against top 50 competition, with the big one obviously being Duke.  But is a 6-3 mark against 51-100 competition all that impressive? Eh.  Their 3-2 mark against teams 101-100 is even more worrisome.

The point I’m trying to make is this: Virginia Tech just isn’t that good.  Like decent teams they’re capable of springing an upset on a bigtime team (which probably makes this all the more difficult for their fans), but they were a mediocre team in a mediocre conference.

Let me ask you this: do these numbers look like those of a tourney team?

Points per game: 140th Overall
Rebounds per game: 192nd Overall
Assists per game: 213th Overall
Field goal Percentage: 103rd Overall

None of those stats are impressive.  In college football that’s the type of team that ends in some December 22nd bowl game that 6 people watch.  But in college football that actually gets the nation talking.

I get that the system is set up differently in the two sports, and that there are a whole lot more teams in college hoops than college football (119 at last memory), but these bubble teams really aren’t that good.

Colorado beat some good teams yes, but played a horrid non-conference schedule.  Isn’t this the same argument we made for schools like TCU and Boise State?  They’d play one prime-time team and then beat up on a bunch of nobodys. Is this not similar at the very least, sans the fact that the Buffs have a number of losses.  Ironically it’s actually backwards.  The Buffs non-conference schedule did them in, and their Big12 Conference kept them alive.

I’m just saying that I find this whole debate interesting.  Fortunately the RPI doesn’t determine a champion.  It doesn’t even determine the two title game participants.  And I know anything can happen in college hoops, but the reality is, these are teams that maybe could make it to the second weekend, but were more likely 1 or 2 and done.  That doesn’t make the argument great, but it means they’re not national championship worthy.

Which means that the championship gets settled on the court, not on the computers.  And I’d rather have team #35 or #69 (however you see it) get snubbed, than the #3 or #4 team.  No system is ever perfect, and none ever will.  Someone will always have a gripe no matter what you do.

The argument may not be why VCU or UAB got into the dance over teams like Colorado and Va. Tech.  Maybe the argument should really be, why these teams even merited consideration for a national championship tournament at all.

Hey, at least it’s not a 96 team tournament.  That’s all I have to say about that.

Photo: AP

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