The NCAA and NIT tournament selections were announced on Sunday… It’s interesting how the television networks have turned this into an event that generates advertising revenue. In fact, my sons were so caught up in the tournament selection that they brought a mini-portable television with them to the restaurant Sunday evening.
Similar to the selection of teams for the BCS games in college football, there is always a certain controversy about some of the selections. For example, the coach of of Syracuse, Jim Boeheim, was openly vocal about his team not being selected for the NCAA… I would have to agree that there are some selections that do not make sense. For example, Syracuse finished the season with a 51 RPI ranking. Meanwhile, teams that received “at large” selections to the NCAA tournament with rankings worse than Syracuse included Georgia Tech (52 RPI), Texas Tech (57 RPI), and Stanford (67 RPI). Hmm, evidently the NCAA selection folks know something that I don’t…
Of course, if Syracuse is unhappy, they should talk to the players at schools with even better rankings that didn’t get invited such as Air Force (RPI 32) or Bradley (RPI 36)… nevertheless, all of these unhappy schools received a consolation prize by being invited to the NIT tournament.
It looks like the four Ohio teams (Wright State, Xavier, Ohio State, and Miami) all play their first round NCAA games on Thursday (Note: The University of Dayton, with an RPI ranking of 75 was not selected for a post-season tourney).