Well...Selection thoughts....

[courtside]

The first things that jump out at me....before looking deeper....

Littlepage the Virginia AD is on the committee....they get a ridiculous 4 seed, and ACC does very well again.

Eugene Smith form Ohio St. on the committee must have lobied hard for Illinois...and how about that Indiana 7 seed wow.

Mike Slive commissioner of SEC conference worked hard.....Tennessee a 5 seed...lol.....Vandy received a strong 6 seed. Arkansas getting in...

No East Coast bias...no Big East Conference representation....and Big East conference got hammered hard in seeding.....and iffy bubbles Syracuse and WV did not get in....

UCLA AD on the committee....and Stanford gets in and USC somehow gets a 5 seed, wow.

Guess they needed someone on the committee.

Some very strange seedings.

I do not like GW's first round matchup...Xavier will have a tough time with BYU, but imo a better chance than GW.

I think the MVC will have its hands full in both games. Holy Cross will give SIU a very good game.

[Tonka]

on some of the bracket analysis it seems the overall opinion is that Illinois should not have gotten in.

it's interesting how Dickey V says you have to look at the overall resume of a team where in year's pasts I have heard him and others say the last 10 - 12 games really matter

Illinois one 10 of the last 13 games or something like that but I think they looked poor in many of those wins

[Bay Area Billiken]

For what it's worth, I picked 32 of the 34 NCAA at larges (63 of the 65 overall, but I don't really consider the automatics as "picks"), the same figure as ESPN bracketologist, Joe Lunardi. I wish I got paid for this little hobby like Joe Lunardi must get paid.

My misses were that I had Air Force and Syracuse in, and Texas Tech and Stanford out.

Air Force: RPI 30; most importantly, as noted by only 1 talking head that I heard, Doug Gottlieb, won at Stanford by 34 POINTS- 79-45!

Syracuse: RPI 51. That one was a flat out shock to me.

Texas Tech: I should know better than to pick against Bobby Knight at NCAA time. The case against: RPI 53, 5-6 v. top 50, 2-3 v. 51-100, and most importantly lost to K-State in Big XII Tournament. The NCAA Tournament Chairman from Princeton tried to rationalize the latter by saying that Tech played in the tougher Big XII South and therefore had to play a first round game before playing K-State. Digger Phelps on ESPN stated the case of K-State. I think the real truth is that K-State was snubbed as part of continued Bob Huggins Punishment from the NCAA.

Stanford: A totally inexplicable reach IMO, except as noted by Courtside, the presence on the Committee of the Pac-10 representative. Whereas the NCAA once reached into the 70's to include Air Force (the Patriotic Exception), this year, the NCAA implemented the Hoover Institution/George Shultz/Condoleeza Rice/Tiger Woods Exception by giving this gift bid to Stanford. By taking Stanford over Air Force (again Air Force won at Maples Pavilion over Stanford by 34 points), does this show that the NCAA senses a shift of influence at the White House from the Dick Cheney/former Sec. of Defense Donald Rumsfeld side to the Condoleeza side?

Stanford's RPI was 65. Stanford was 4-8 v. Top 50, 5-4 v. 51-100, and 4-6 in the last 10 games, along with a first round Pac-10 Tournament exit.

The talking heads were objecting to Xavier's presence in the NCAA field. Xavier clearly deserved to be there. Xavier was regular season A-10 co-champs and the #1 seed in the A-10 Tournament. That former Dukie, Jay Bilas, incurred my wrath by citing the "Saint Louis" loss as a bad loss for X. Please!

Hubert Davis, that old ACC UNC Tar Heel, objected to the presence of Illinois. Well, the NCAA got the big U of I to stop Chief Illiniwek from dancing any further. Once that happened, did the NCAA decide that the Illini themselves should be dancing?

What did Syracuse do? The best explanation I have seen, the one I believe the most, comes from our poster Courtside above re the absence of a Big East voice on the NCAA Committee. The talking heads tried to relate the snub of Syracuse to not playing non-conference games on the road. Someone said that if the NCAA took Syracuse, then it had to take Drexel, which won at Syracuse. If so, then how can the pick of Stanford over Air Force be explained?

As for the STL media darling MVC, the MVC, as expected, received the exact number of bids as the much maligned A-10- 2. Missouri State was not even mentioned as a bubble team in the last listing I saw.

Maybe the Mulligans will learn a valuable lesson from this about proper decorum. But I frankly doubt it. Still it was good to see yet another Mo. State snub, the third one in history, and the second one in successive years. It is back to the drawing board in the Ozarks.

[courtside]

I had Texas Tech and Stanford in....thought they both deserved it too.

Any talk imo for snubs begins with Arkansas and Illinois.

The Big East was destroyed on seeding...wow. and obviously didn't get Syracuse or WV in...WV wasn't likely or deserved, but neither were the others I mentioned.

Can't say it was East Coast bias....it was committee bias...

George Mason had someone on the committee...and there is your ODU or Drexel bid....took ODU.

I believe it is 8 teams in 40 or worse RPI....and 3 more just snuck into the top 40 at last minute...so throw out your RPI stuff as the biggest factor.

1) Get someone on the committee.

2) Schedule cupcakes your last ten games...kidding...but try to schedule your weakest conference foes last ten games....

3) and do well in your conference tourney.....

These are the biggest things once again the committe looks at at least this year and recent years.

[Bay Area Billiken]

Perhaps the A-10 should nominate Jonathan Coachman to represent it on the NCAA Committee. I write that only partly in jest because I thought "The Coach" did a good job on the A-10 play by play this year. In the words of the late Howard Cosell, the Coach tells it like it is.

[Bay Area Billiken]

Courtside, I really think you are right on as to what was behind these bids, namely the makeup of the NCAA Committee.

[Marlow]

I fear that the disparity between the BCS schools and the non BCS schools will only get larger. First of all, the BCS schools refuse to play the mid majors because they don't want to risk a loss, so the mid majors are relegated to playing each other--and knocking each other out of the tourney, Secondly, the BCS schools get huge exposure on TV--I feel that I saw Indiana, Duke, Louisville, and Georgetown on TV much more than Creighton, SIUC, MSU, Air Force, and the others. Because of this TV exposure, recruiting of the 4 and 5 star players is done, by and large, by television. If the BCS schools keep getting the key players because of TV exposure, the gap between those schools and the mid majors will only get larger. It's quickly becoming a fact that the only way for a school like SLU to get to the tournament is to win the conference tourney, and that will become much tougher without the players, who will be lured to other schools because we in a conference that gets absolutely no TV coverage.

[Pistol]

There's too much in the seedings that I don't have the energy to discuss, but as for who got in and who got left out, there are a few disappointments to me, and these are the schools that should switch spots:

Arkansas: Good SEC tournament, but not much else.

Illinois: Not a tournament team. Has anyone watched them play. It's not fun.

Stanford: I've always loved the school and the program and I love the Pac-10 this year, but they didn't deserve it. This is a prototype NIT team this year.

Drexel: Man, these guys had a really impressive resume. For once, I agree with the loudmouths at ESPN on something.

Air Force: RPI of 30 (without any MVC inflation), destroyed Stanford at Stanford.

Syracuse: The Big East got no love this year. I think they're a little stronger than WVU, and one of those two should have been in.

Finally, I'll respond to Bernie's article today because he gets dumber and dumber as he gets older and crankier. I know he and Doug Elgin are close personal friends, but this Valley love affair is getting out of hand. He lambasted the talking heads at ESPN for their east-coast bias in feeling bad for Drexel. He asserts that they all got what they wanted in seeing the major conferences well-represented. Had he watched the broadcast, they all expressed disappointment in the downward trend of non-BCS conference at-large bids. I think everyone is disappointed by this, not just Big Bernie.

Bernie, one more thing (because I suspect you read this board): Missouri State, no matter how much you cry for them, was NO BETTER than the seventh team left out. What I mean is that Drexel, Air Force, Syracuse, West Virginia, Kansas State, and Florida State were all definitely more qualified, and you could even make a case for Appalachian State, too.

Anyway, other than the 6 schools I have at the top, I don't have any major beefs with who got in and who didn't. Thoughts?

[Bay Area Billiken]

Was a quota in effect re Syracuse not getting in? And is that how Stanford got in?

If Syracuse got in, that would have given the Big East 7 teams. If Stanford was left out, that would have given the Pac-10 only 5 teams. The Pac-10 was the third ranked conference, the Big Ten was 4th, and the Big East was 5th. All three ended up with 6 teams in the NCAA. ??? The Pac-10 insisted that it should get 6 teams. Luke Olson was lobbying for that last week.

[courtside]

Bay,

As I suggested to you...this will only heat up the MVC defense in local STL media.

Several things in that article.....nobody ever said the RPI was the be all end all...it's not. never has been...

MVC record v Big BCS schools is 15-12...however half of those games were home games or neutral court, and avg place of finish of BCS league was 8th. Only 2 in 27 games did the BCS team finish 4th or better in its conference.

In 52 games on the season, Bradley and Mo St won 4 games v the RPI top 50. 2 of those was Mo St defeating Bradley.

Obviously Bernie talked big and big about the MVC, and it all came crashing down yesterday. I suppose Elgin, Viverito etc...have to go back to tthe drawing board. ...because as I have tried to tell people all year, one year doesn't change a lot, and media perception outside of the MVC region isn't anywhere near the MVC thinks it is.....the next biggest grumbling would come from 60th media market Omaha....only two media markets in top 100. Falling on deaf ears.

[Bay Area Billiken]

The sports guy on KGO 810 this morning was bemoaning that Stanford is being sent to Lexington, KY to play Louisville in the NCAA.

Stanford should be thanking its lucky stars that it is in the NCAA at all. Many of the alleged criteria, not only the NIT-like RPI (65), were against Stanford. Stanford was 4-8 v. the top 50, 9-12 v. the top 100, and 4-6 in its last 10 games. Stanford was one and done in the Pac-10 Tournament.

When you consider that a school with an RPI only 2 worse than Stanford (Akron, RPI 67) did not even make the NIT, you really have to wonder.

There was more space between the RPI of NIT teams Fresno State (88) and NC State (90) and SLU's RPI (74) than there was between that SLU RPI and that of NCAA bound Stanford (65).

BCS conference quota, anyone?