The Big Lead

Mike Francesa is Angry that Iona Got into the NCAA Tournament Over Pac-12 Regular Season Champ Washington

By Jason Lisk

None
facebooktwitter

How did a major conference champion not make tournament? Well, let’s draw up a hypothetical:

  • Go 7-5 in the non-conference, with the best win against, maybe Cal-Santa Barbara, and have a 19 point loss at home to the South Dakota State Jackrabbits;
  • Have the rest of your league also struggle non-conference and have zero great wins (Oregon State over #11 seed Texas, Stanford over #11 seed Colorado State, Stanford over #11 seed NC State, and Arizona over #13 New Mexico State are the only wins for the entire conference over teams seeded #14 or better);
  • Win that league, with an unbalanced schedule, by just one game over two other teams, and lose to one of those teams at home and split with the other;
  • Then lose in the first round of a conference tournament game to the #8 seed in the conference.

If we want to make it an automatic bid for the regular season champ, I’m sure the likes of Iona and Drexel would be down with that. If the conference chooses to give their bid out to the tournament winner, then don’t complain when the committee looks at the details and doesn’t just automatically give the bid when they see “won the conference.”

The RPI had Iona at 40 and Washington at 70. Okay, the RPI sucks, right? But it’s the tool the committee was going to use. I can’t find any other objective measure that has Washington ranked ahead of Iona this year based on results either. Like literally none, probably because they don’t have a “but they won the Pac-10” bonus algorithm. Some are close, others are more spread out. Would there be any outcry out all if they had gone 13-5 instead of 14-4 in the weak Pac-12, and instead done better in the non-conference? No? ‘Cause that’s Oregon. Oregon played 4 games against the dregs of USC, Arizona State and Utah, while Washington played 5. That extra game, two against California. And Oregon’s results were better outside of conference play.

He also took a shot at Gonzaga, after being told BYU had a quality win over them. Gonzaga, who beat Arizona and is a #7 seed, isn’t any good. And they certainly don’t boost the resume of BYU, who by the way beat Oregon.

But Washington won the conference! Great job, Mike Frances-er! Now go back to not actually paying attention to basketball, after you rousted yourself enough to look at some standings.

[photo via US Presswire]