The Valley and the Tourney Revisited

[kshoe]

In general I agreed with the side that the Valley was a little overated this year and their RPI rankings were a little higher than reality. In fact, I've started rooting against them partly because I'm afraid an even stronger Valley can only hurt SLU and its local recruiting.

However, what happened yesterday was a disgraceful treatment of the Valley. Per the RPI, they deserved 6 teams. Most conceded that they wouldn't get the six but five was pretty much a lock. Then they get 4 and we have to listen to Packer and Nantz rant about how that is too many! Its one thing to screw a conference but then to act like they were lucky to even get that many. To me that is insulting.

And this isn't just about the Valley. The A-10 gets about the same amount of respect or lack of respect. Packer was the blow-hard that ripped on St. Joes a couple years ago and Martelli told him off shortly thereafter. If only St. joes could have pulled out that OK St. game and really made Packer squirm.

The 8 seed to GW should be read as an insult despite the poor RPI. The RPI obviously doesn't matter when you want to exclude a team like Missouri St. but can be used to lower a team ranked 10th in the country to an 8 seed.

[SLUDrew]

The committee was punishing those who did not play tough OOC schedules and both GW and Mo State came up short in that department.

[Sheltiedave]

Hobbs, or the GW athletic department, deliberately soft scheduled to get their lofty win-loss record. Why should a team that avoids playing tough teams get a high seed?

Their best player went down, and the NCAA learned their tournament seeding lesson a few years ago when Kenyon Martin got injured. GW has earned about a five/six seed based on their RPI, and was then bumped down a few with Pop's injury. They played no one in the season, and got seeded accordingly.

Outside of three team runs since 1979(Indiana State, Wichita, and SIUC,) the Valley has failed to make a deep run in the tourney. Teams hanging in the tourney are what garner respect, and the Valley doesn't deserve five or six teams. I see a lot of speed bumps from the Valley in this tourney, even with four teams. SIU is the best Valley team now, and they are toast when they run up against any team with a good center and a fast physical guard.

[billiken_roy]

i was out playing basketball last night and didnt see the talking heads but one would expect the typical disrespect that packer, nantz, phelps, vitale, bilas etc would spew towards anyone not in the acc, sec, big ten, big east and big 12. if it was up to them, those five conferences would be the tourney.

missouri state just got screwed. not only did they have the guts to go on the road and play arkansas and wisconsin milwaukee, they had great success throughout the year except the conference tourney.

[billiken_roy]

sheltie, giving out seeds that are all worse than 5 seeds isnt going to enable anyone to win consistently. now if the valley got 4 seeds and all were 5 or higher, and they lost more than they won, i agree with the demand to succeed. but any time you are faced with being assigned terrible seeds, the road is a tough one to the top. teams that have those 5 or better seeds basically have a first round bye and the 1,2 and 3 seeds will have a relatively easier second game as well.

[kshoe]

was 44. That wasn't the reason they were punished. They were punished for being in a conference that was already going to get a record # of bids.

Again, its one thing to screw them but its another thing for the national media to act like they should be thrilled with 4. Screw em and then tell them how lucky they are to not be screwed harder. Thats what really irked me.

[billiken_roy]

doug elgin was on bernie's show this morning and was p'd at the electronic talking heads comments last night. i would like to be there when he and packer meet up in the next couple of weeks. maybe gary williams will be riding shotgun for fudge.

[Quality Is Job 1]

Pretty much every year at least one five seed loses in the first round (to a 12). Only teams seeded one through four can be pretty confident of a first-round victory, and, except for No. 1 seeds, even they have occasionally lost in the first round to underappreciated low-seeded teams.

[billikendave]

Mo.St's OOC and RPI all benefit from the same thing: not scheduling many 225+ RPI seeds but they only scheduled 1 top 50 RPI -- Arkansas. They played (and beat) a bunch of 100-200 teams. They went 4-8 vs top 50.

Mo St is a good team and probably should have gotten a berth but it isn't the travesty that everyone thinks.

[slu72]

Left to their own devices these guys would kill college hoops and especially the dance. The dance is all about the underdogs up to a point. Yes we love to see it all, but who would be as interested if you didn't have a Butler, a Zaga (used to be), X, SIU making a run to the sweet 16. Face it, the final 4 usually comes down the top 6-8 teams in the final poll, but along the way there is plenty of drama. It's like Martelli told Packer two years ago, Billy Packer can kiss my a**. Same goes for Vitale and the rest of those guys. If we have any hope of getting in the dance next year it better start right now with scheduling. 2-3 top 25's, 2 top 50's, Say we get 4 of those, then add 4 against 100-150's, and 3 against 50-100's. Not easy but it's got to be done. Pull off an upset in 1, split w/ top 50, 2-1 against group 4, sweep group 3. Gives you 8-3 OOC against some solid teams. You win 12 in A-10 you got to be in then unless you lose first round of tourney. That's the only way it's happening. We'd have an RPI in the high 20's low 30's assuming A-10 improves along with us.

[Quality Is Job 1]

It's probably easier to win Pick 3 than to guarantee, over a two-year scheduling cycle, that the teams you'll play will have winning percentages high enough for a great RPI ranking.

Who in the Missouri Valley is senior-laden this year? If the Bills were to schedule a reciprocal home series with Bradley, for example, on the basis of what they did this year, they could wind up hurting their RPI ranking for the next two seasons.

Another thing people have to remember when looking at RPI is to consider the opponent's winning percentage, rather than their RPI ranking. Their RPI ranking is a result of the teams they play, but their impact on our RPI is primarily their winning percentage. If their winning percentage is around or slightly under .500, they'll hurt our RPI ranking (strength of schedule), but their RPI ranking might be reasonably high if they play a lot of teams with great records.

[SShoe]

Im not shedding one tear for any Mo Valley team that didn't get in because I really agree that a strong MO Valley is not good for SLU. However, I do think its unfair that the selection committee and others have said time and time again that you need to schedule tough and have a strong rpi to get into the tournament and then when the Valley does that (to a degree), and builds fairly strong resumes, they get shut out. Sure, I dont honestly believe that Mo State or any of the Valley squads were all that great, but they played by the rules given to them and beat the system. Challenge the system, not the teams.

[Sheltiedave]

Three things...

The MVC received recognition by getting four teams in. If they do well this year, they have a case for an added team next year and in the future.

Seeds come and go. The ones you want IF YOU ARE NOT A TOP DOG are the 5, 12, 8, and 9. A 12 wins every year, the 8 and 9 are tossups. Conversely, as a verty low seed if you can beat a 2, then you can run to the sweet 16 much easier in the distaff bracket. It is poison any way if you do not have the athletic stars that can dominate a game, which normally mean having a quicksilver guard or a 3 pt shooting mobile forward.

MO State did not even get a 1 seed in the NIT, so the committees had the fifth MVC team slotted FIVE spots from the final NCAA spot. There were some screwy decisions made during the seedings and the rankings of the conferences, but the committee indicated there were four more deserving teams that lost out as well.

[Billikens_Fanatic]

If the committee were truly punishing those with weak OCC schedules, there's no way that Air Force gets an at large with the 273rd toughest.

[Jayhawk]

It is ridiculous they got 4 teams. They should have had 2. Cincinatti deserved to be in. Can you can honestly tell me that those teams are better than Cincinatti. The bearcats would have dominated that conference. The Valley is a mid-major. They didn't deserve 4 teams.

[billikenmetz]

We should be an NAIA team. We recruit like an NAIA team and we play like one. Our coaches would excel on an NAIA level. We'd sweep the floor with SWIC and Quincy and Spoon River and other teams like that. We'd rule the NAIA universe.

[billiken_roy]

the bearcats have only two players over 6'2" that play any amount of minutes. i think that they might be able to compete, but for the most part, they could not beat the top 6 teams of the mvc on a regular basis this season.

[Tonka]

Not because of how many teams did or didn't receive a bid, but because of how the MVC was trashed. I'm not an MVC fan but the crap that came spewing from Jim N and Packer was over the top. I was pissed listening to them. The wouldn't leave it alone. In fact, I felt robbed as a viewer because so much time was wasted on the trashing of the MVC. They kept bringing up the past which to me makes no mistake. I don't care about the history of a school or how well they've done in the tournament. I would like to think they judge the all teams on the current year. I'm not pissed that the MVC got four in and I'm not pissed they didn't get more in. The way they trashed the MVC was uncalled for and when they went at the AD from Virginia I thought they were being condescending. Do you think these rants won't play into future considerations in future years? I think they will. Whether or not the MVC deserved what they got is up for argument and all will have a thought on that, but give me a break on the cry baby crap spewing out from these analysts.

If they consistently want to spew crap all the way across the board then fine, but they don't. The worst you'll hear if they don't agree with a team from one of the power conferences making the dance is that they committee was "generous". It's inconsistent and wrong and destroys all credibility.

I agree that scheduling tougher games is the right thing to do but we all know that formula isn't the easiest thing to do. You schedule too tough, you lose and don't make it anyway. You schedule too light, then it wasn't tough enough. Perhaps some of these teams should know this and their job is too figure out the right formula, but then don't forget that even games you want to schedule may not come that easy because if you are somewhat of a threat many of the majors won't play you.

I still never understood the automatic bid based on the conference tourneys. Regular season champion yes, but there are teams that win the conference tourney that don't deserve to be in the dance more so than some of the MVC teams that made it.

[billikenmetz]

I think that Douggie Elgin is very happy today at MVC headquarters. Especially that MVC teams have the opportunity of knocking off some perennial NC2A powers (i.e. Bradley/Kansas)...It's not like the MVC has always had 4 teams in the tourney. It's a banner year for the Valley and we should be happy for them.

[Battlecat455]

SWIC is a junior college, Quincy is Division II and your statement is ridiculous.

[cheeseman]

The automatic bid for the conf. tourney is a conference decision. The Big 10 held off for a long time having a conf. tourney but they eventually caved in for the money. I don't agree that the MVC played all that tough of games - while they had an OOC of 6, that simply was a result of the how the formula played out. They got 4 teams and that was fair - I am sorry the SMS got their bid handed to Bradley but that was SMS fault for not going farther in the conf. tourney just like it was SLU's fault for not going farther in our conf. tourney ending up costing them a NIT bid. While I can not stand Packer either, his point was that one year does not make the MVC an equal to the ACC. He is right to a point. I think all things considered equal, the selection committee had a tough job but did manage to accomplish two important things - they evened the at-large bids out among confs to some extent and sent a message to the power confs to get off their butts and play somebody. Actually, I think this works to the mid major advantage because now when they call a power conf. school and the power conf. school says sure we will play you here one game or maybe a 2 for 1. All the mid major conf. has to say is sorry 1 for 1 or nothing. The power conf. team will have no choice but to reconsider or else they will have the same fate as this year and they do not want that.

[Bay Area Billiken]

Please don't diss my hometown team.

This year Quincy University was Western Division Champions of the Division 2 Great Lakes Valley Conference, one of the top conferences in Division 2. And Quincy plays an exciting brand of ball; the Hawks don't hold the ball, that's for sure. It is true that Quincy was once in the NAIA, but that was when the NAIA was a lot stronger.

Quincy used to play and beat a lot of these schools that are masquerading as Division 1 programs- Western Illinois, Eastern Illinois, Southeast Missouri State, Chicago State, even Illinois-Chicago, which improved dramatically after jumping to D-1.

I'd take my chances right now with Quincy going up against those five powerhouses (Northern Arizona, Delaware State, Lipscomb, Fairleigh Dickinson, and Georgia Southern) that received automatic NIT bids, very possibly to the detriment of SLU. Those five sound like some old Quincy College Holiday Tournament field.

[Bay Area Billiken]

I thought the trashing of the MVC by CBS talking heads Jim Nantz and Billy "ACC" Packer was completely out of line. Here's a school like Bradley, which just received its first NCAA bid in years, and before the Selection Show has even ended, Nantz and Packer are ripping the MVC and talking over the NCAA Committee Chairman, who himself is from Virginia in the ACC.

First, let me preface this by saying that I am certainly not an MVC apologist. I have 2 degrees from SLU and am a SLU Billiken fan, period. But Packer's citation of the ACC's tournament records vs. the MVC can easily be rebutted. For years ACC powerhouses like Duke and North Carolina have received de facto first round byes in the NCAA. How many times has Duke played either the SWAC, MEAC, or some other lower conference champion in Round 1? How many of those games have been somewhere on Tobacco Road?

Re Nantz, how many basketball games has he actually broadcast this year? Hasn't he spent more time on the golf course? Isn't he from Houston? Did that impact his credibility since UH didn't get in the NCAA? The two most vocal critics among the coaches were Gary Williams of Maryland (ACC) and Tom Penders of Houston. They were the coaches quoted in that Washington Post hit piece. And, Maryland, of course, is in a D.C. suburb, right there in the Post's circulation area.

Re Packer, what more can you say? He is a shill for the ACC. At least in the old days, Al McGuire was there to rebut Packer when Packer would go off on his ACC diatribes. I really miss Al McGuire on the broadcasts.

When I was at SLU, those of us who hailed from Big Ten Country constantly heard about the almighty ACC from SLU students from the D.C. Area. We had a healthy rivalry with them. The ACC crowd had no respect at all for the Big 8 (which now composes 2/3 of the Big 12). But again, we had Al McGuire and even Dick Enberg to bring some semblance of balance to the broadcasts. Yesterday, it sounded like Jim Nantz had been drinking Billy Packer's ACC Kool-Aid.

[StLouBlue]

Here is a link to a PD story where Elgin talks about this. I think the MVC deserved one more bid, but I kind of expected 4 to be the most also. If the MVC received high seeds like 4,5,6 then I can see where the announcers would be upset, but with only one 7 and the rest double digit seeds, I think Nantz and Packer were completely out of line. Also talking about wins in the tournament, when the MVC is always seeded lower than the ACC and B12 teams is just a joke, no way you can make an equal comparison and this really has nothing to do with what teams are qualified to be in the tournament this year.

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/sports/st...A9?OpenDocument

One quote from the article:

Elgin was particularly disappointed that Packer referred to past NCAA tournaments.

"More than anything, it was a disappointment," he said. "Here we've come off the greatest year we've ever had. And we are a client now - the tournament is carried by CBS - and we are the brunt of an entire segment on the most important show of the year on CBS other than the games, and they're bagging us. For what reason?"

[Quality Is Job 1]

Just because the Missouri Valley got the same *number* of bids as the ACC and Big XII doesn't mean the selection committee considered them equal -- just look at the seeds.