College Sports Ombudsman: Unprecedented State

Yesterday evening the NCAA basketball tournament brackets were announced. After it was over, TWO fully expected football BCS chairman John Swofford, wild-eyed and disoriented, to burst on to CBS's set and proclaim "this is an unprecedented state of health!!!" before being beaten into submission by Seth Davis and Greg Gumbel, the latter at times using his shoe, before security could remove Swofford from the studio.

While the NCAA tournament is in a far better state of health than the football's BCS circus, yesterdays selections indicate that the same large school/large conference bias is present in both. In short, the bias can be summed up as the following: nearly every school in a big conference is better than even the best schools in the midmajors.

TWO submits the following: evidence shows that over the past 4 or 5 years, mid-majors have consistently out-performed comparably ranked BCS bubble teams and mid-majors have out-performed their own seeds. Because of that, not only should more midmajors receive bids, but their seeds should be higher.

Much of the problem has to do with the self-fulfilling nature of the selections. When mid-major teams are selected, they are frequently (and sometimes correctly) seeded 16-12. These mid-majors are thus playing the top teams in the country, teams that have already proven they are better than their intra-conference BCS bubble teams. Meanwhile, BCS bubbleteams, if they receive bids, are typically given the 7-10 seeds, meaning that they have a much better chance of winning those early round games, as the competition is not as tough.

So lets compare like things and look at how mid-majors have done against BCS schools in the 10 vs 7 and 8 vs 9 games historically.... unsurprisingly to TWO, the record is even... 18-18. Further, since 2004 10 mid-majors seeded 7th or higher have reached the Sweet 16, while only 4 BCS schools have gone that far.

What does that tell you? Quite simply, midmajor bubbleteams are frequently undervalued. The root of the problem is the selection committee's handling of information. Each year they are asked: Do we pick A) a BCS team on which we have plenty of information and that has proven beyond a doubt that they are clearly not a top team, or do we pick B) a mid-major team that we don't know as much about, has a great record and could be a flop or could make an incredible and exciting Cinderella run that captures the imagination and hopes of a nation? Year after year, the selection committee picks choice A. And the fact that 10 mid-majors have made the sweet 16 after being seeded 7-10 (compared to only 4 BCS bubble teams) shows you that year after year, it is the mid majors who are undervalued and the BCS teams that are who we thought they were.

I won't go overboard with historical analyses - but a look at the final NCAA polls in recent seasons is helpful for establishing that every year several midmajors outperform their seeds... in 2008, Davidson (9th), Butler (14th), Western Kentucky (22nd) and Drake (23rd) finished in the top 25, meaning that, in retrospect, each deserved to be a high seed. Their actual seeds? 10th, 7th, 12th, and 5th, respectively. In 2007 there was Southern Illinois (final ranking 14, seeded 4), Nevada (15, 7), Butler (21, 5), Winthrop (22, 11) and BYU (24, 8). And 2006 saw George Mason (6, 11) George Washington (19, 8) Wichita State (21, 7), Bradley (24, 13) and Bucknell (25, 9). You have to wonder, first, what could these teams have done if they were seeded more accurately in the first place and second, what could the next best team in their conference have done if they had been given an at-large bid?

So armed with this body of information, this body of facts regarding midmajors' regular and consistent performances which tend to indicate that they should be given more and higher bids...now that we have this...lets look at what the selection committee has done in 2009.

We DON'T have St. Mary's, which went 26-6 (including 4 losses while their star player, since returned, was out), but we DO have 20-13 Maryland, which went 7-9 in conference including a loss to Duke by 127 points in January that was so brutal that Greivis Vasquez set his hair on fire at midcourt and coach Gary Williams wept, nude, on his office couch for two days afterwards.

We DON'T have Creighton, which went 26-7 and won its regular season conference, but we DO have Arizona, which went 19-13 and finished 6th in the Pac-10. I'm not sure if my favorite part of Arizona's resume' is their loss to UAB or that they've lost 5 of their last 6 games - but either way, I can't wait for their Cinderella run.

We DON'T have Davidson, which went 26-7 (including a win over current 6 seed West Virginia and close losses to Duke and Oklahoma - both 2 seeds) and won its regular season conference championship, but we DO get 19-12 Wisconsin, which managed to not win a single game against a ranked opponent but did have a player on the roster named Wquinton. The best part is that its pronounced "Quinton". The family loves the letter W but hates Wynton Marsalis. There was only one solution.

And we could go on - what about at-large bids for Vermont, VMI, College of Charleston, Arkansas-Little Rock, San Diego State and Niagara? I'm not saying that these teams ALL should have received bids, but the fact that they weren't even in the discussion shows that there is a problem.

When the selection committee finally stumbled out of its meeting room, the smoke cleared, the dust settled, the strippers went home, and the young Thai boys hid in the cupboard, of the 34 at large bids, thirty (30) went to BCS bubble teams. Somewhere, John Swofford was wondering why Xavier got a bid.

In conclusion, I last won an NCAA pool in 2000. Thank you Mateen Cleaves.