Can you smell it in the air, fellow sports fans? Can you? The fresh smell of paper in the midmorning? Newly sharpened pencils scribbling away? The sweet agony of defeat after the first weekend? No, I'm not talking about the first day of school, I'm obviously talking about March Madness here. By now, most of you probably know that I value Selection Sunday as a holiday which rivals Christmas, July 4, and my birthday combined. In other words, I love March Madness. If I could legally marry my bracket, I would.
However, some people don't share the same love for yesterday.
By now, you've all probably heard about the "UAB/VCU" fiasco. You've all probably heard many of the bubble coaches crying on national TV- mostly a metaphor, but there's always some crazy guy that can't keep it together in his 30 second ESPN/CBS spot). And certainly you've probably heard the inordinate amount of excuse making and finger pointing coming from Boulder, Tuscaloosa, and Blacksburg. Good people of my readership, I'm here to tell you one thing, and one thing only.
Don't expect any tissues from me. That's right. I said it.
I'm looking at you, Colorado head coach Ted Boyle. You're shocked you didn't make the tournament? Really? Hey, I've got an idea. Maybe you should actually play an out of conference schedule, because by my reckoning, the Boulder Nursing Home's JV team probably could have given you a better level of competition outside of Big 12 play. In case you didn't know, there are about 340 teams in Division 1 college basketball- that includes Duke, Kansas, and Kentucky all the way down to East Tennessee State and Wofford College. Even the 16 seeds that everyone annually writes off (because let's face it, they can't and won't win) are in D1. Out of the 340ish teams in cbb, do you know what Colorado's out of conference schedule ranked? 320. That's abysmal. That's terrible. I could play a harder schedule playing pickup 2 on 2 on my break at the YMCA in between shifts. Colorado men's basketball team, please remember that the burden of proof to earn your at large bid lies with you and you alone. If you can’t prove that you belong by playing quality competition outside of the Big 12, you don’t belong in the NCAA tournament. Period. They don’t care if you beat Kansas State three times. They don’t care that you beat Texas and Missouri on your home court. Prove that you can play teams besides the 11 in your conference. That’s what the committee wants to see, and it’s not exactly a new criteria. You’re shocked you didn’t get a bid? I’m shocked that you’re shocked at all.
And yes, I’m looking at you, Alabama head coach Anthony Grant. You know, as an incredibly successful head coach at VCU, I would think you would remember how to win games in the non-conference. VCU played remarkably well under your tenure and actually took down Duke to make it to the sweet sixteen in the postseason a few years back. What happened? Unlike Ted Boyle, you scheduled some games out of conference… you weren’t exactly playing world beaters, but the OOC schedule was nothing to sneeze at. So clearly you remembered how to schedule. However, it seems you forgot how to win. You lost at Purdue? Understandable- so did Ohio State. Oklahoma State? Well… okay. Everyone has a loss that’s ever so slightly unfavorable. But Seton Hall? Iowa? Providence? ST PETERS? Come on man, who cares if you went 12-4 playing in the SEC west? My eight year old camp kids could match that mark! You want to know why Georgia, that team you beat twice, got in over you? They won their out of conference games. They went out and played Notre Dame and Temple, and kept it close. They beat UAB. They beat Colorado. They beat Georgia Tech. Next time, try winning games.
And oh yes, Virginia Tech coach Seth Greenberg, am I looking at you. Are you kidding me? You think the committee “has an agenda” and that agenda “doesn’t include Virginia Tech?” ARE YOU SERIOUS? Maybe before you dissect the committee’s agenda, you should take a good hard look at your own, and out if the word CHOKING is in BIG bold CAPITAL LETTERS! You got one good win! Congrats on beating Duke, seriously. It’s a marquee win that you should be proud of. It does not, however, exempt you from the rest of your season. Do you know what you did after that big ole win of yours, Seth? Do you? (And I say you, because everything you’re team does is your responsibility as the head coach, believe it or not) You lost at home to Boston College. You know, that team that’s even further down the bubble than you, that was competing for your spot? Actually, lost would be a nice word. Virginia Tech got embarrassed. They got destroyed. They got manhandled. And they followed it up with some good old fashioned salt in the wound, a loss to fellow bubble team Clemson. At the end of the day, Coach Greenberg, I’d take a good hard look in the mirror. Clemson is playing in Dayton, and you are not. You lost your regular season-ending game to what team? Clemson. That might not mean anything to you, but it certainly meant something to the committee. And guess whose opinion counts? Not yours. An agenda? How dare you deflect responsibility like that, after losing not only your last two regular season games, but virtually every single significant non-conference game your team played. If I was the AD at Virginia Tech, I would fire you so fast that it would make you wonder if I had an agenda that didn’t involve Seth Greenberg.
Let this be a warning to all of you future bubble coaches out there. There will always be a UAB. There will always be that team that you think doesn’t deserve to get in over you. But if they don’t deserve to get in, yet they did- what does that say about your team that didn’t? It is your responsibility to prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that your team belongs in the at large field of 37 teams. Should you leave that doubt, you are opening the door to allow yourself to be left out; at the end of the day, not proving you’re worthy is the exact same as proving you’re not worthy. Schedule good teams, and beat them. It may not be easy. But it is simple.
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