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By the time Selection Sunday rolls around, most college basketball teams and fans are tired of hearing the word 'bubble.'
Experts, and those who call themselves experts, have analyzed to death the 'bubble teams' chances of getting into the NCAA Tournament. This overkill is much more prevalent on the men's side, but for the women's game there are still plenty of places to see and hear the analyses, especially in the age of the Internet.
Each year one or two hopefuls get their reactions shown on national television -- this time ESPN stuck a camera in the ESPN Zone in Las Vegas to get a first-hand look at UNLV. The Lady Rebels were on the good side of the bubble, and a restaurant full of people went bonkers when UNLV appeared on the screen at the same time as Midwest #5 seed Minnesota.
My favorite team, Clemson, also gathers somewhere each Selection Sunday to watch the pairings. I'm not sure where the party was this season; in some past Marches it has been in the Lady Tigers' lounge near the locker room of Littlejohn Coliseum, and sometimes it has been at a legendary burger joint called Mac's Drive-In, about five miles away in Pendleton, S.C. The cheers there went up early in the hour wherever the Tigers gathered because their region, the Mideast, was the first region to have its pairings announced. A similar thing happened two years ago when Clemson was also on the bubble -- the Tigers were the fourth team to be shown, so they could relax for the rest of the selection announcements.
A bubble team that has to wait until the final region is announced (usually the West) has its collective heart rate pounding much faster -- the last two bubbles to be revealed this year were Santa Clara and Tulane, and the cheers there were likely merged with sighs of relief.
Even though the discussions will continue on who deserved to get an NCAA bid and who didn't will continue for a week or so, those arguments all became moot in the late afternoon of Selection Sunday, when the committee decides who has earned a spot in the field of 64 and who should start promoting ticket sales for the WNIT. Those on, or connected with, teams that have their 'bubbles burst' could just throw things through their TV screens when those celebration scenes from restaurants or locker rooms get airtime.
Circuit City and other electronics stores may be busy places in Houston in the early part of the week. Neither of the city's two major women's teams, the Houston Cougars and the Rice Owls, were invited to the Big Dance, and they arguably have the two biggest beefs with the committee. Rice could point at its 21-8 record, an RPI of 47, and its marquee victories over Louisiana Tech and Notre Dame as its positives. Houston had an attractive 22-7 mark, plus the fact that its Conference USA mark was 11-3, three games better than at-large invitee Tulane, and its regular-season victories over Tulane and league tournament champion Cincinnati.
Others on the wrong side of the B-word included Hawaii (23-7), which has a 45 RPI and beat Rice in the WAC tourney semis after losing twice to the Owls in the winter. Alabama (17-11) had a .500 record in the SEC, the strongest conference in the country; a number of teams had gotten in with sub-.500 league marks in recent years, including Georgia this time around. North Texas (20-8) was second in the Sun Belt, 39th in the RPI, and had a nonconference schedule that included five teams in the top 12 of the RPI. Virginia Tech (17-10) has wins over at-larges Clemson and Boston College plus lock Old Dominion, as well as a 35 RPI, the best number among those teams that were bypassed by Maryalyce Jeremiah and her nine cohorts.
The opposite of Virginia Tech was Mississippi State. The Bulldogs' RPI is 67, but MSU was selected. Clemson was next in that category at 58. No one else above 50 was awarded an at-large berth. But the committee found positives with the Tigers and Bulldogs that outweighed the negatives, such as their mediocre RPI rankings, win totals (17 for Clemson, 18 for MSU), and quarterfinal exits in their conference tourneys. Mississippi State was 8-6 in the SEC and beat Georgia twice. Clemson had a few signature victories, notably a sweep of Virginia and non-ACC wins over top-25 schools Penn State and South Carolina.
So what's most important? Wins and losses? Nope, cry Rice, Houston, and Hawaii. A strong RPI? Virginia Tech and North Texas say no. Quality victories? The Hokies and Owls would think that theory is for the birds.
The committee uses a bunch of criteria for its decisions, but it seemed that conference RPI might have been right up there on the NCAA checklist. No league that was outside the top 10 received multiple bids. The top 10 leagues received eight bids (SEC), seven (Big 12), six (Big 10), four (ACC), five (Big East), four (Mountain West), two (West Coast), three (C-USA), two (Pac-10), and two (Missouri Valley). That is a very consistent pyramid, and it is important for the committee to be consistent.
The WAC, on the other hand, is rated 12th. Imagine how unusual it would have been if Rice and Hawaii had gotten in at the expense of Clemson and UNLV. That would have meant that the #3, #6, and #12 conferences would have had the same number of bids. Fortunately (at least for those who enjoy Mac's cheeseburgers) the committee realized that a statistic like that would have been very irregular.
What's more important than conference RPIs or anything else for the teams that didn't make it is each had at least one aspect of its resume that wasn't impressive. For Virginia Tech, it was the fact that the Hokies lost eight of their last 11 games. Outside of Rice, Hawaii did not have another win against the top 60. Rice needed to beat Hawaii in the WAC tourney semifinals and didn't. Alabama lost a similar must-win in the SEC quarters against Georgia. Houston had three losses to teams below 140 in the RPI and a strength of schedule rating in the 120s. North Texas had all those powerhouses on its schedule, but the Eagles needed to do what Clemson did and win one or two of those games.
None of the teams whose bubbles are still intact can complain about their seeds, but a few of the conference champions have to be scratching their heads. Santa Barbara (25-5) probably would have been an at-large choice had it lost in the Big West final because the Gauchos had an RPI of 37 and finished the year with 21 straight wins, yet UCSB gets stuck with a #12 seed and has to face powerhouse Louisiana Tech in the first round. And did Dawn Staley tick off someone from the committee when she was the best guard in the country at Virginia? Her coaching of Temple (20-10) to the NCAA tournament is one of the year's best stories and the Atlantic 10 is the #16 conference out of 31, but the Owls are seeded 14th.
But at least they're in. Their complaints certainly won't be as loud as those heard in Blacksburg, Tuscaloosa, or Houston.
Or the cheers from Clemson.
3/11/02
