Jeff's Good Comments and My Reply

My friend Jeff from the Huffspot has some great postings on his site ,and he emailed me comments on mine.  Here's his comments and my reply.

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I wouldn't say "weird" as opposed to "inconsistent," Gary, as there were some selections made that just don't belong and don't make sense. The seedings aren't all that great, either. UConn seems to have it easy, with a soft 2, 5, an erratic 3 and 4, and a very overrated and disappointing 6. It has far too many of the "last-in" bubbles, and its ratio for autos to at-larges is 3 to 13. What did UConn really do to deserve this? They didn't outrightly win their conference during the regular season, and they didn't get very far in their conference tournament. Memphis may be the weakest #1, but that's got a good bunch of games.

Gonzaga got shafted by, I can only guess, Tennessee. What a surprise.

Bucknell is a 9!

As for your rules; I think the selections show how much those things were considered selectively. For example:

Rule 5: Alabama got a gift because of this one. One quality out-of-conference win, to Winthrop, at home, and beat Florida, Tenn, and LSU at home. They only beat Kentucky away. A record of 17-12? It isn't like the SEC is as good as the Big East or Big Ten, despite the number of draws.

Even adding an injury stipulation would have Rule #7 the least followed. GMU should have lost their bid, had they followed through with this philosophy, in the way that it hurt schools like Creighton (out), GW (now an 8 seed), and Villanova (which had to say Ray would be playable).

If Rule #9 was considered, fully, then who would have been snubbed, ultimately? It looks as, according to my projections, that a better bracket could have been made by the RPI outright, and would be less controversial. Based on a Last in/first out scenario, this is what I have:

Air Force: Missouri State
Utah State: Hofstra
Seton Hall: Cincinatti
Alabama: Creighton

Apply rule #7, and GMU hands its bid back to Seton Hall.

If you want to take Bradley's bid, you can give it back to Alabama. Would people have as big a complaint about Bradley being snubbed as opposed to Hofstra?

I really think the issue here was that the thought of giving the MVC and CAA one more bid over a second bid to both the Mountain West and WAC caused some heat at the tables on Sunday
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Hey Jeff

 

Yes, inconsistent is a better word.   I think I am still stunned by the whole thing and yes, you are right, there were a lot of deals that went down Saturday night I believe.  I was going to write about it today, but you are right there on this.  this is what happened

 

The committee all agreed that Cinci, Florida State and Michigan were out of the mix.   They also all agreed that it should be given to mid majors.  What happened most likely is that there was a block of at least the Utah AD and the WAC commissioner saying that we'll agree to this, however we don't want a third colonial or a fifth mvc but we want one of each from our conferences.  The others conceded and said ok, we'll give you each a spot, pick the team.  They chose Utah State and Air Force.   After this happened, the AD from George Mason said, I'll agree to this only if the second colonial team is George Mason.  They all agreed and that's what went down.   There can really be no other explanation for this. And since Littlepage has gone into hiding and no one can get the minutes to the meeting,  there's no other scenario you can come up with. 

 

As for the seeding, yeah its bad.  Syracuse goes from a bubble team to a 5 seed all because they won the Big East tournament?  Seven or eight yes, five, no.  BC, who beat NC twice, including in the ACC tournament (basically a carolina home game) gets a 4 and NC gets a 3??? Yes, Bucknell gets an undeserving nine and gets to face a 1 seed if they win.  Geez, thanks!  GW goes from a possible 2 or 3 to an 8 (and I think they will lose to UNCW, a bad draw for them).   Tennessee is a 2?  Huh. 

 

I think I am still in a state of shock.  How you can take George Mason and not take Hofstra ahead of them, let alone not at all for reasons aforementioned will have me numb for several more days. The scenario I state above is the only way to explain it.  That's all I can say, and the last time I talk about it.