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The Valley vs. Billy Packer

Friday, March 17th, 2006, by Fred (, No Comments »
ACC, basketball, Billy Packer, MVC, NCAA ,

I don’t know why I feel personally invested in the success or failure of the Valley. I went to a Big 12 school, a MAC school and a Colonial school. But I do - ACC-jonesing blowhards like Billy Packer can do that to anyone. Lest we forget, last weekend talking heads Packer and buddy Jim Nantz criticized the NCAA selection committee for putting in four Missouri Valley Conference teams, the same as their beloved ACC, thus leaving out ACC tourney wanna-bes Maryland and Florida State. Better to have bottom-bracket backbenchers from the “power” conferences than the number 3 and 4 teams from a mid-major conference with high RPI. The Valley has six teams in the RPI top 35. The ACC has three.

So how did the Valley fare on the first day of the first round?

MVC: 1-0
ACC: 2-0
Big East: 0-3
Big 10: 2-0
Big 12: 1-1
PAC-10: 2-0
SEC: 4-0

The real test, of course, is today, when the three teams that the committee encumbered with unnecessarily bad seeds take the court. If NC State loses to Cal and Southern Illinois and Northern Iowa beat West Virginia and Georgetown, respectively, does that mean that the Valley is as good as the ACC? Or better than the Big East, which would then be no better than 3-5?

Of course it doesn’t. The committee selects and seeds teams based on their performance this season, not on whether the conference has won games in past tournaments.

UPDATE: So things didn’t go so well for the Valley this afternoon, with Northern Iowa falling to Georgetown and Southern Illinois losing to West Virginia. The smaller conferences acquitted themselves admirably, however, with 14 seed Northwestern State of the Southland Conference taking out Big 10 foe (and 3 seed ) Iowa, and 9 seed Bucknell of the Patriot League upsetting 8 seed Arkansas (from the SEC).

This doesn’t address a larger point about seeding, however. Northern Iowa was a 10 seed with an RPI of 25. They faced a 7 seed with an RPI of 36. The other 10 seeds had RPIs of 51 (NC State), 56 (Alabama) and 58 (Seton Hall). Southern Illinois was an 11 seed with an RPI of 29. They faced 6 seed West Virginia, which had an RPI of 38. The other 11 seeds had RPIs of 26 (George Mason), 52 (Wisconsin-Milwaukee) and 55 (San Diego State). if the committee is going to continue to seed mid-major conference champions and high-RPI runners up in the double-digits, it will continue to be an uphill battle.

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March Madness: ACC or MVC?

Monday, March 13th, 2006, by Fred (, No Comments »
ACC, basketball, Billy Packer, CBS, Jim Natz, MVC, NCAA ,

More on the NCAA tourney bracket later, but more important is the disgusting spectacle that was Jim Nantz’s and Billy Packer’s commentary following the announcement of the bracket. Everyone with half a brain can recognize the love affair CBS has with the ACC, but for these two bozos to go off on the committee and the MVC because there are as many Missouri Valley teams in the final 65 as ACC teams was beyond the pale.

Maryland and Florida State have no one to blame but themselves. Fair or not, if you are the number 5 or 6 team from the ACC, you have a non-conference schedule hurdle to clear. After 10 games, FSU was 9-1, but had beaten Jacksonville, Alcorn State, Louisiana Monroe, Texas Southern, Bowling Green, Stetson and Campbell in that run. They played one tournament team (Florida), to whom they lost by 18.

Maryland started the season 11-2, including wins against Fairleigh Dickinson, Chaminade, Nicholls State, Western Carolina, American, Delaware State, VMI and Texas A&M - Corpus Christi. Maryland actually played four games against tourney teams, beating #8 seed Arkansas 75-62 and #4 Boston College 73-71, but losing to #3 Gonzaga 88-76 and #8 George Washington 78-70. Following the cupcake start, Maryland was 8-10.

The #5 team from the Big East (Georgetown), on the other hand, played at home against Vanderbilt, went to Oregon, went to Illinois, and scheduled Duke out of conference. That made up for the cupcakes they scheduled.

Is this a double standard? Perhaps, but the committee has been telling the power conferences for years that they need to schedule games against the mid-majors and stop gorging on cupcakes. I think it’s great that Bradley made it in over Maryland and FSU. And the solution for Gary Williams and Billy Packer is easy - next time, schedule a game against Wichita State or Missouri State instead of Nicholls State.

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