College Basketball Ombudsman: Mid Majors Take 2

TWO's longtime friend, frequent debate loser and sometime muse, Gus Johnson's Whisper, wrote a blog entry countering TWO's previous entry arguing for more mid-majors in the NCAA tournament. GJW, for reasons known only to him, screamed like a school girl during a Jonas Brothers sighting when he learned of the inclusion of Arizona, Maryland and Wisconsin in the tournament field. Humorous similes aside, GJW is a fan of the Jonas Brothers. Just stating facts here.

I will attempt to summarize his argument so that you will not have to wade through the general incoherence and disorganization of his piece. It essentially breaks down into a few ideas:

- He breaks up mid-majors into two categories, mid majors from the A-10 and "Boppers" (bottom-toppers) which are good teams from terrible conferences.

- He shows that in this and in previous years, most of the final 4, final 8 and final 16 were teams from BCS conferences, not "Boppers".

- He shows that a high percentage of "Bopper" teams do not make any sort of tournament runs, and that Arizona, Maryland, Wisconsin and Michigan (this year's questionable at-large teams) each won at least one game.

- He propounds that, in some years, when the BCS conferences are down, midmajors deserve more bids, but this year was not one of those years.

Unfortunately for GJW, his argument, in addition to following no known logical progression, is also mostly unresponsive to mine.

First of all, trying to remove Xavier and Temple from the ranks of mid-major is a bit self-serving, but ultimately inconsequential for this discussion.

Second, the fact that the teams advancing in the tournament are mostly BCS schools should suprise no one. Generally the very best teams are from BCS conferences. They get the most bids. In a bad year for BCS schools, they get 24 of the 34 at-large bids, and in a good year (like this one) they get 30 out of the 34. It makes sense that there would be more BCS schools advancing deep into the tournament. At no point was TWO arguing that midmajors, or a high percentage of midmajors, will be regularly advancing to the Final 4.

The argument, rather, is about teams on the margins. Bubble BCS teams vs Bubble midmajor teams. When the selection committee had 4 remaining at-large selections (having given out 26 of the previous 30 to BCS schools), they had a choice between BCS teams like Arizona, Wisconsin and Maryland and midmajors like Creighton, St. Mary's and Davidson.

Why should they have picked the latter?

1) The NCAA selection committee has a responsibility to pick a field for the tournament that will both provide an opportunity for the top teams to play and be enjoyable for students, fans, and the viewing public.

2) The BCS teams have proven, beyond a doubt, that they are not top teams. There is plenty of information available to suggest that these schools will not get very far in the tournament. When you play 16 ACC games and lose 9 of them, as Maryland did, sure, you might have a good game and beat a 7th seed, but then you will do as you did all season long, and get handled by a top team (Memphis blew out Maryland in the next round).

3) The midmajors - or Boppers - are more mysterious, but are likely not top teams either. They have not played as much top competition. There is a strong likelihood that these schools will, like the BCS bubble teams, get handled early in the tournament. GJW correctly points out that only one or two midmajors, if any, make significant tournament runs each year.

4) Because of the lack of information on midmajors, however, once every couple of years there is a midmajor team drastically, drastically undervalued that actually is a top team. Davidson - which in 2006 lost to eventual national champion Kansas by 2 points in the Elite 8 - was a 10 seed. George Mason made it to the final 4 in 2006 as an 11 seed and, prior to their run, were famously told that they "didn't belong" in the tournament by Billy Packer.

5) Somewhat more sentimentally, the public LOVES Cinderella runs and upsets, no matter the sport. No one, not even graduates of the school, will remember that Arizona beat Utah and Cleveland State and then got beaten by 40 points by Louisville, but everyone remembers Cinderella runs of Davidson and George Mason. I don't think its unrelated that this is widely considered the most boring NCAA tournament in recent years.

6) Because choosing BCS bubble schools over midmajor bubble schools risks that a top team will not make the tournament (even if this is the case only once every two or three years), while the reverse choice does not run any comparable risk, coupled with the enjoyment fans get out of seeing smaller schools play against big schools leads me to once again aver that the NCAA Selection Committee should select more midmajor at-large teams.

If anyone is wondering what trip you just took with me over the last 6 paragraphs, its called a logical progression.

This weekend's upset prediction: Michigan State over UConn. Thabeet gets in foul trouble.

In conclusion, Dr. Octagon was GJW's pediatrician during his formative years.

NCAA Tournament Ombudsman: Sponsored by Buffalo Wild Wings

After a weekend of total mayhem and madness, TWO has collected himself and is prepared to share the following reflections on the NCAA tourney's opening rounds.

1) Arizona. Some of you may have interpreted last week's "I can't wait for their Cinderella run" statement as sarcasm, implying that Arizona didn't belong in the tournament and wouldn't make a run. It wasn't sarcasm...incredibly accurate prediction. Humors aside, I will admit that Arizona, stunningly, has a case that they should have made it in the tourney after all. While beating Utah and Cleveland State wasn't the toughest route, the sweet 16 is the sweet 16. And as a man of integrity, I will say that I was wrong about Arizona. However, I absolutely stand by my argument as a whole - and also happily note that Maryland, Wisconsin and Michigan failed to make any sort of run in the tourney. That, combined with my picking 14 of the Sweet 16, makes me both a man of integrity and a man who is almost always correct. It feels good. It feels really good.

2) Syracuse. I am rooting for Syracuse purely to extend the enjoyment of watching Syracuse girls, classes 2001-2008, go berserk all over Murray Hill. It is difficult to reconcile this with my rooting against Eric Devendorf, his unacceptable oncourt posturing and his equally unacceptable offcourt blaccent. If I wrote a movie about Syracuse basketball, Devendorf would be played by Justin Timberlake and Johnny Flynn would be played by Fife Dawg from A Tribe Called Quest. And Fife Dawg would constantly beat up Justin Timberlake.

3) The Buffalo Wild Wings Commercial. Absurd. Unfortunately I can't find the basketball version of the commercial on the internet, but here is a football version from the fall, with essentially the same theme. The basketball version will be shown 1000 times each game for the rest of the NCAA tourney, so you can't miss it. The premise is that a bunch of fans - from New York and Boston - are watching a game together at a bar. They decide they are having so much fun that they ask the bartender to put the game into overtime. He sends a signal to a photographer on court who, by using an ultra powerful camera flash, prevents a Boston slam dunk that would have won the game. The fans are absolutely delighted!

What are the problems? First, Boston and New York fans would never harmoniously be at the same bar, and second, there are at least 5 black people wearing Boston jerseys. This is 5 more black fans than actually root for Boston (or, as it is also known, the "Nation's Capital of Sneaky Racism"). Even Boston's black players don't root for Boston. For example, Rajon Rondo and Kevin Garnett play to win for the Celtics when they're on the court, but as soon as they're back on the bench they heckle their teammates and revert to their default mode of hating the Celtics, Patriots, Red Sox, Bruins and Revolution. Even the Revolution? Especially the Revolution. Third, the fans - for both sides - cheer wildly when the game is sent into overtime. Boston fans celebrating - thanking their lucky stars - that a Bill Buckner moment happened. Well, yeah, there may be years of agony later....but at least for now we get to enjoy an extra 45 minutes of Crispy Southwest Dippers and Huckleberry Lemonade!

And I think thats the reason why this seemingly innocuous ad has had such a strong reaction. Real fans, while their favorite teams are playing, are stressed out, sweating, gut-wrenched and at times possibly miserable. I worked with an English woman who was actually incapable of watching England's soccer team play. She was so nervous that she had to sit outside and have people tell her what was happening. Real fans don't like and have nothing in common with the happy-go-lucky, wide-eyed Buffalo Wild Wings people, who are just thrilled to be at a chain restaurant socializing and high-fiving each other no matter who wins or loses.

4) The Announcing. Fantastic. Gus Johnson and Bill Raftery do a great job calling their respective games and capturing the excitement and emotion of the tournament (see also Gus Johnson's Whisper). One of TWO's least favorite things is the understated play-by-play man. In the 1980s and early 90s, this role was filled by Pat Summerall - here's Summerall calling the final play of the 1987 NFC Championship Game. While I liked Summerall generally, he just struggled at capturing the emotion of a big play.

The current understated play-by-play man is Joe Buck, who is even worse because he's boring and smug at the same time, as if he's bigger than the moment and too cool to be excited. Here is Joe Buck calling arguably the greatest play in Super Bowl history. Transcribed: "Pressure from Thomas off the edge...Eli Manning stays on his feet...airs it out down the field...it is caught by Tyree."

Lets compare that to Gus Johnson calling the end of a college basketball game from a couple years back. Transcribed: "Throws it down court!!! Batista wiTH THE CAAAAAAATCHSDXL&HGR2&HHHGGHX!!!!!!!! AND THAAAAATS ITTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!! WHAAAAT A COMEBAAAACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Can you imagine if Gus had called that Super Bowl play? He would have literally been screaming in tongues, bitten the ear off of the color guy and ransacked the booth. The transcript would have been entirely in wingdings.

5) Prediction. Villanova over Duke. Because I'd love it.

In conclusion, Huckleberry Lemonade sounds delicious.

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.