Appalling

What a disgraceful display by the tournament selection committee with respect to the Big East and to the Syracuse Orange in particular.  Everybody who is paying any attention to college basketball was wondering whether West Virginia had a shot as the 8th team to get in from the Big East -- turns out they weren't even close.  Villanova popped up early as a 9th seed, which I found shockingly low, and then Notre Dame comes out as a #6 and I was already getting pissed off at the appalling nature of the seeding with respect to the conference.  Marquette was an 8, and by the time the last bracket came out, knowing that Louisville was ahead of us and that they wouldn't slot two conference teams together on one side, I knew we had shockingly not made it all.  I don't know why.  I don't konw how.  We were a lock, I thought.  Everyone did.  I really can't explain it.  The Big East RPI was inexplicably low this year, perhaps sucked down by the huge size of the league, and that dragged everyone's RPI down, especially a team like Syracuse, which doesn't schedule a ton of big early season matchups.  But come on - we're the only team to beat Georgetown in two months -- oh yeah, that's right, they don't think Georgetown's that good because they play in the Big East.

According to Vitale, Arkansas, Stanford, and perhaps Illinois were the teams that should have been replaced by Syracuse (and Drexel).  Everyone is apparently pretty shocked that Arkansas made it.  And the Pac-10 and Big Ten - as they do every single year -- seem to be overrated via the RPI and the stupid committee and for the most part, come into the tournament and lay a big fat egg.  Indiana as a #7 seed?  Are you kidding me?  Syracuse would beat them on a neutral court 8 out of 10 times.  And so would West Virginia.

I am proud of this team coming back and having a great season at the end of the year.  I really think this team actually had a better season than last year's, which just got on a run in the Big East tournament but wasn't nearly as good before then, and I would have thought they had a chance to go far in the tournament.  But apparently those wins against Georgetown, Villanova, UConn, Providence, and UConn again down the stretch weren't all that impressive, because according to the committee, the Big East sucked.  Well I'm sorry, but whatever is causing the Big East's RPI to appear low (and it happened last year too - the first year of the bigger conference) needs to be addressed immediately because there's no way any sane person (without looking at stupid RPI crap) would think that Syracuse was not one of the top 34 at-large teams in the country.  There's just no way.  So congratulations, guys.  You had a great season.  Too bad no one else saw it.

And go Georgetown.  Show these fucking assholes what the Big East is all about.  And when you and Notre Dame and Pitt and Louisville all make the sweet 16, I want to see these idiot fuckers on the committee eat some fucking crow.  Fuck them all.

By the way, just in RPI, Syracuse (at 50) is ahead of Georgia Tech, Texas Tech, Virginia, and Stanford among at-large teams that got in.  Stanford is #65.

Stanford:  18-12, 4-8 vs. RPI top 50, 5-4 vs. 51-100, 9-0 vs. >100, 4-6 last ten games
Arkansas: 21-13, 5-5 vs. top 50, 6-6 vs. 51-100, 10-2 vs. >100, 6-4 last ten games
Syracuse:  22-10, 3-6 vs. top 50, 5-2 vs. 51-100, 14-2 vs. >100 (which includes UConn), 7-3 last ten

Some more about Stanford... they lost to Air Force by 34!!!!
Out of conference wins:  Siena, San Jose St, Northwestern, Denver, UC Davis, Fresno State.
Impressive OOC wins:  at Virginia, vs. Texas Tech (two teams that were also on the bubble).
Terrible losses: home against Air Force (79-45), home against Santa Clara (#99 RPI) (62-46)

They also lost to Cal and in the first round of the Pac-10 tournament and 7 of their last 11 games!!!

Comments

[Su Fan]

Consider the interconference results of the teams that finished sixth through tenth place in the Big East. #6 Marquette beat Duke at Cameron, #7 WVU beat UCLA and NC State, #8 Depaul beat Kansas, #9 Villanova beat Texas, and #10 Providence beat Boston College.

[Drexelgotscrewed]

Care to explain whe Drexel (king of the Big East as they won road games at Syracuse and Villanova,) is NIT bound?

[No Orange]

Syracuse: With 10 Big East wins, many people will be surprised by the Orange's omission, but a deeper look provides some answers. Cuse went only 3-7 against the RPI Top 50 and suffered home losses to Wichita State and Drexel in nonconference play. The Orange did win six of eight to close the season and were better than .500 on the road, but it wasn't enough.

[Bill]

Syracuse was a completely different team in December, with Devendorf ill and distracted by his friend's shooting, and Watkins injured. And Wichita State was ranked in the top 15 when we lost to them (as was Oklahoma State). And as anyone who is discussing this would notice, if Drexel also deserved to be in, then it's not exactly a bad loss.
We closed the season 6-2 with Devendorf and Watkins back at full strength, and dominated Georgetown. Even the two losses were by a combined 6 points.

The RPI is clearly flawed against the Big East (for the past 2 seasons), so to say that we were 3-7 against the top 50 is a dubious claim at best... but even given all of that, there is absolutely no defense for Stanford being in the dance over us or Drexel or about 7 other teams. Syracuse should have been ahead of Purdue, Illinois, Stanford, and Arkansas at the least.

I don't know who "Andy Glockner" at ESPN.com is, but he's clearly an idiot. Probably why he writes for ESPN.com.

[T]

How about the fact that we had four conference road wins, only played the bottom four teams in the Big East a combined three times and also were the only team who has beaten Georgetown in their last sixteen games?!? If Syracuse's resume was not enough to put them in, I don't know whose is.

To watch Gary Walters, the NCAA Selection Committee Chairman hem and haw about there being a lot of great teams, gave me a legitimate purpose to drive to Indianapolis tonight and end him.

All this brouhaha about Syracuse not playing a non-conference road game and not beating anyone out of conference is a red herring. The Selection Committee always asserts an emphasis will be placed on how you have played down the stretch of the season, namely the last ten games. This is the philosphy that puts an Arkansas team who went 7-9 in the weak SEC division into the tournament because they maid the SEC Championship finals (only to get blown away by Florida). It is entirely inconsistent to apply this approach to a team like Arkansas or Stanford (4-6 in last 10 games, including a first round Pac10 tourney loss to USC) and not to Syracuse, who won a game in their conference tournament and performed well down the stretch.

In sum, Boeheim was correct in his press conference. Whenever Syracuse leaves the decision on whether or not they will make the tournament up to the Selection Committee, they always end up on the losing side.

Good luck getting this dejected team excited for an NIT matchup against perennial powerhouse South Alabama.

[Bill]

From Boeheim's press conference: "Every single expert had us in the tournament - even our vocal critic, Mr. Gottlieb, had us in the tournament. No one out of all the people paid to prognosticate this tournament, had Syracuse out of the tournament. Not one. Or even on the bubble. And I believe that's right. We won 11 games in the Big East [including the tournament]. We played each of the top 6 teams in the conference and we played two of them twice (Notre Dame and Villanova).

There's no way I can figure this out..If I think about it for now and for the next ten years, I will never understand how we are not in the tournament."

He specifically mentioned Arkansas' 7-9 record in the weak half of the SEC -- how the fuck did they make it? And they didn't even beat anybody in the SEC tourney? They played Mississippi State in the semis for crying out loud!!!

He also remarked that this is the first time in the history of the Big East that a 10 win team did not make the tournament, and that he was pretty sure, but not positive (we need a fact check), that this is the first time in the history of the NCAA that a 10-6 team in a BCS conference has not received a bid. First time in history.

I'm not one for conspiracy theories, but it seems pretty evident that some people inside the tournament committee (which "shockingly" did not have a Big East representative - how the fuck does that happen?) had a personal grudge against Syracuse and/or the Big East. I don't know if it's true, but I've heard rumors that the SEC committee member (and perhaps others) were highly critical of Syracuse not playing road contests before Big East play (which they never do in any year, although few big schools play more than a couple). I wish something could be done beyond griping, but the Big East better wake the fuck up and pay attention, because we got completely screwed this year. First time in history.

I just watched the Boeheim press conference myself, and the above poster made several of the points that Boeheim made. He really has no idea why we're not in.

[Bill]

Here's the fatal flaw with using the fucking RPI as a basis for anything... Purdue losing to Ohio State 3 times (regardless of the score -- I'm assuming they got blown out) counts a hell of a lot more than us winning 2 of 3 vs. UConn (RPI-wise).

Compare SU’s resume to that of Purdue (a 9 seed). Purdue’s only wins vs. the RPI top 50 were all at home: vs. Indiana, Mich St, and Illinois. MSU is the highest-ranked team in that list, with an RPI of 24; the others are in the 30s. SU also had 3 wins vs. the top 50, and one was on the road: Nova, Gtown, at Marquette. Marquette is the lowest-ranked team on that list (22); the others are 19 and 9. When you look at the other side of the coin, Purdue lost two games to teams with triple-digit RPIs: at Indiana State (139) and at Minnesota (189). SU had two such losses also: at St Johns (131) and at UConn (102). Finally, both teams were 3 games over .500 against the “middle of the pack” RPI teams (PU 6-3, SU 5-2). Looking at those numbers, you would expect SU to have a higher RPI than Purdue, having beaten better teams and lost to less-worse teams. Yet Purdue’s RPI was 7 spots better than SU’s because they lost to Ohio St 3 times and once to Wisconsin. Hey, we could have lost to Ohio State 3 times too! Would that have got us in the tournament?

[Bill]

Stanford plays Louisville in the first round. Obviously I will be going nuts for the Big East team in that game and if the Louisville team that we were beating by 15 points with less than 6 minutes to play but somehow ended up losing to goes out and destroys these Stanford motherfuckers, I will be very fucking smug on this blog for weeks to come about the stupid NCAA tournament selection committee. (Of course, if Louisville loses, ignore all this ranting).

[Ira]

Listen, every year someone allegedly gets screwed. Unfortunately Bill, I am a little more sympathetic to our friend from Drexel.

(paraphrased from ESPN.com, which happens to be on your top 50)
There is no legitimate argument for the committee to take Syracuse ahead of Drexel. None. Syracuse has three good wins all season -- Georgetown (very good), at Marquette (solid, but sixth-place in Big East) and Villanova (the league's 9-seed). They didn't play a road nonconference game. Drexel won at Syracuse, also won at Villanova (better than Cuse's home win) and won at Creighton (not G'town, but a very good win). Drexel also won 13 true road games (Cuse won five) and has an RPI that's 11 spots better (39 to 50).
Given what the committee has said in the past about teams having to prove themselves on the road and get quality wins, it would be completely hypocritical to take the Orange over the Dragons.

Maybe next year they can schedule a few games with a crappy overated underperforming UCONN team.

Nevertheless it's time to suck it up and cheer for them in the Not Invited Tournament.

Go Great Danes

[Bill]

Solace?
I doubt this will provide any solace to Syracuse fans this morning; in fact, it might just get the blood boiling again, but a website known as The Bracket Project compares the NCAA Tournament projections of 30 different websites.

According to this, 29 out of 30 websites had Syracuse in the tournament.

Selection Committee
I'm not trying to feed the venom--and judging by my e-mail inbox, there's quite a bit out there--but here's a link to the bios and photos of the 10 members of the Selection Committee.

You'll notice there's no representative from the Big East Conference, but the ACC (Craig Littlepage, AD at Virginia), SEC (Michael Slive, commissioner of the conference), Pac 10 (Daniel Guerrero, UCLA AD) and Big Ten (Eugene Smith, Ohio State AD) are all represented.

Hmmm... Which bubble teams made it again? Georgia Tech, Arkansas, Stanford, Arizona, Purdue and Illinois. Which bubble teams did not? Syracuse and West Virginia (Big East) and Kansas State (Big 12). Drexel also did not but the Colonial Athletic Association was represented by Thomas J. O'Connor, George Mason AD.

Fanning the flames...

Kim Baxter
kbaxter@syracuse.com