The Spartan Nation Basketball Weekly

Selection Failure Last year, the NCAA Tournament ended with the two best teams playing for the National Championship, and the best team left standing on top.Â

Selection Failure

Last year, the NCAA Tournament ended with the two best teams playing for the National Championship, and the best team left standing on top. But that’s unlikely to happen this year because the Selection Committee “bricked” the assembly of the brackets. The Selection Committee’s job is to put together balanced brackets that will produce better and more competitive match ups as the tournament goes on. It’s not to put a potential Final Four pairing in a “made for TV” Sweet 16 rematch (MSU vs. KU), and it’s not to deflate a specific Region to the point that speculation becomes wide spread, almost immediately, that certain “chosen” teams have a relatively easy road to the Final Four. Whether or not the Committee lucks out with a reputable Final Four and National Champion, this Selection Committee might have done the worst job filling out the 64 bracket slots in modern history.

No individual matchup is bigger than the integrity of the whole Tournament. Much as the 2004 Tournament was tarnished, and is still remembered for the horrific officiating from the initial tip to the final buzzer, this dance could end up with a similar stain. The ’04 Tournament is known as the year that contending teams were fouled out of the tournament, from the opening round through the Final Four clash between Duke and eventual National Champion, UConn. The 2010 Dance has already been smeared enough among the public, not just among MSU or Big Ten fans, to cause legitimate concern.

More important than expanding the Tournament, the NCAA should look first at shoring up the Selection Committee process. There are plenty of competent people available to help the NCAA Selection Committee fill a critical void that Bob Knight recently identified; people on the Committee that actually know College Basketball. 2010 could well go down as the worst job of assembling the brackets in the modern era of the Big Dance, despite who makes the Final Four, and despite whatever spin you might hear from CBS and the Four Letter Networks as the tournament rolls on.

Big Ten Takes a Big Slap

The entire Big Ten took a solid slap in the face on Selection Sunday. The Conference that plays Defense, night in and night out, had one team left out of the field that probably deserved to be in (Illinois), teams seeded in the wrong brackets (MSU and OSU in the same Region), and teams seeded with the wrong numbers (MSU, OSU, possibly Wisconsin and Purdue). But perhaps the biggest slap, to all 11 Big Ten teams, was the Committee’s decision that a share of the Big Ten Championship was only worth a #5 seed. That deserves an explanation.

Ohio St. was flat hosed out of a #1 seed, though they won the Big Ten Championship and Big Ten Tournament. It clearly wasn’t enough that the Bucks won their last 7 straight, and 16 of their last 18. Maybe the committee forgot that 3 of OSU’s losses this year came without the best player in the country (Evan Turner), just like they apparently forgot that #1 seeded Syracuse lost its last two games before the tournament. Somehow, the Orange ended up keeping their # 1 seed. So much for the Committee’s emphasis on how well teams are playing right before the Dance.

But then there’s MSU. The Spartans are Big Ten Champions, but were up and down in their last 10 games, including the Big Ten Tournament loss to a desperate Minnesota team. That loss came in OT, after an obviously missed foul call with 3 seconds left in regulation that would’ve given Kalin Lucas a chance to win the game by making one of two Free Throws. But the Committee didn’t appear to consider the whole scenario when sending MSU three time zones away with a # 5 seed, despite currently being ranked 12th and 13th in the National Polls. The Committee didn’t think much of MSU’s out of conference schedule, didn’t think much of MSU’s Big Ten Championship, and didn’t think much of their time without the reigning Big Ten Player of the Year, Kalin Lucas. They seemed to punish MSU for not running away with the Big Ten again this year.

Many in the Spartan Nation were stunned when it was revealed that MSU would be the 5th seed in the Mid-West, and start out in Spokane, WA. The voice of the Final Four himself, CBS Sports’ Jim Nantz, spelled out the Spartan Nation’s thoughts shortly after the brackets were revealed by admitting, “I thought Michigan St. might be a better seed.” Coming from the voice of the Tournament, on the Selection Show itself, is probably as strong a criticism as the Committee could get.

Sure, the storyline of Jud Heathcote living out there is a special, a once in a lifetime event. And the obvious NCAA dream of a Sweet 16 rematch with Kansas sounds like a nice idea. But neither story line should be at the expense of the compromising integrity of the Big Dance. This isn’t the NBA, it’s the NCAA. The tournament is much better than that. To make matters worse, the Selection Committee essentially said, “have a nice cross-country trip to the same Region that one of your Co-Champions is also seeded in,” because that makes a whole lot of competitive sense. How hard is it to split up three Conference Co-Champions when there’s four different Regions? And if a # 5 isn't the lowest seed of all-time for a Big Ten Champion, I'd love to know what is.

Perhaps the team that ended up with the minimum seed the Spartans should have received is the hated Wisconsin Badgers. Many Spartan fans in the South East now hate Wisconsin even more than they already did. Badger Bo somehow edged out MSU for a # 4 seed and trip to sunny Jacksonville, despite finishing 4th in the Big Ten this year and getting run in the first round of the Big Ten Tournament. That appears to be quite a big of a gaffe for a Selection Committee that supposedly spent hundreds of hours putting together the brackets.

You would’ve thought that a final look over the brackets would’ve revealed the obvious; they had MSU and Wisconsin in the wrong spot. They had a Conference champion, with a better overall record, seeded lower than the fourth place team that’s also ranked lower in both polls. Some bracket problems could have been solved, and some balance restored, by simply flipping MSU and Wisconsin. And from the all important "storyline" perspective, a flip would’ve produced a rematch of “The Dahlmans,” as Wofford is the # 13 seed in the East Region. That glaring oversight of placing Wisconsin as a # 4 could have been exactly what inspired Jim Nantz’s commentary about MSU’s surprising seed, before the ink on the brackets had barely dried.

The Spartans should be stung, angry, and inspired by the # 5 seed. We’ll find out in the first couple rounds of the Dance whether the committee was right, or whether they gave the 2010 Spartans exactly the motivation and inspiration that Tom Izzo has searched for all year long. The clear disrespect should leave the Spartans salty going in to the Dance’s opening number, now with something to prove. Despite Tom Izzo’s humble response, shortly after they were stoned with the #5 and a three-time-zone trip, behind the scenes I have to assume this has the Spartans all fired up. All year, this team has struggled to find something to play for, which is understandable coming off the 2009 year that had seemingly everything “Michigan St.” to play for. But the Selection Committee has definitely given them something to play for now, respect.

The Spot Up 3

Three quick thoughts to take with you to the start of the Big Dance:

1. In order to make a deep tournament run (past the Sweet 16), MSU will need a “tournament changing” individual performance. For example, without Travis Walton’s career best against U$C, MSU never gets to Ford Field last year.
2. Nice to see that Kansas Coach Bill Self, and now even veteran NCAA announcers like Tim Brando, have joined in to support the idea presented in this column earlier this year to expand the “play-in-games” of the NCAA Tournament. To take that idea one step further, it would be nice to see the “play-ins” feature BCS teams versus Mid-Majors to help settle the debate on the court as to who deserves a bid. Again, the “play-ins” could expand to a total of 8 games spread over the Tuesday and Wednesday before the Tournament tips, but the most important point about any Tournament expansion is not to drag the NCAA Tournament out to a fourth calendar week.
3. How can some members of the media talk so much about this Spartan’s “issues,” when quite honestly, they don’t know what they are. Many continue to speculate about them, and maybe put together a couple pieces of the “issue” puzzle here and there, but at this point, a lot of it is simply speculative and repetitive babble.

Now…let’s Dance.