STORRS, Conn. – The pressure on the American Athletic Conference in its first season has been intense and steady. It’s not easy playing in the shadow of the Big East, especially when the old league is still playing quality basketball, still holding the conference party at Madison Square Garden and still grabbing high seeds to the NCAA tournament.
It’s not easy when Syracuse, an original member of Big East betrays the founding fathers, heads to the Evil Empire known as the Atlantic Coast Conference, and then spends a large portion of the season ranked No. 1 in the nation.
The American learned Sunday night that four schools will represent the AAC in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. Not bad. Not bad at all, for the first time around the block.
But the total did fall short of the anticipated five bids. Louisville, Cincinnati, UConn and Memphis made it. SMU did not.
“That’s crazy,” UConn forward DeAndre Daniels said.
You can’t blame Daniels for thinking that way. Two of UConn’s eight losses this season came against SMU.
That snub of SMU might have been among the Top 10 unexpected decisions made by this NCAA men’s basketball committee, but it wasn’t No. 1. At the top of the list was Louisville showing up as a No. 4 seed. Yes . . . a 4 seed in the Midwest Regional.
The defending national champions, who shared the regular season American title and then put on one of the most dominating displays ever in a conference tournament in Memphis last week, are truly playing like a No. 1 seed. The expectation was that Louisville would be rewarded at least with a No. 2 seed.
Not so.
Cincinnati was handed a No. 5 seed, Memphis an 8 and UConn will play in the East Regional as a No. 7 seed. Sure, the Huskies are delighted to be back in the tournament after a one-year absence. But UConn, 26-8 after losing to Louisville in the AAC title game, had a strong consensus of support from bracketologists as a No. 5 seed. The Huskies beat Cincinnati twice, including last week in the AAC tournament, and got a lower seed than the Bearcats.
As a No. 7 team, UConn gets a tougher draw, plays Atlantic-10 tournament champion Saint Joseph’s in the second round and then would likely meet old Big East foe Villanova (a No. 2 seed after failing to reach the Big East title game) in the third round – if they survive the opener against Phil Martelli’s Hawks.
Think about it. The No. 7 seed could be interpreted to mean UConn is not a Top 25 team. That, as Daniels says, is crazy.
“I’m happy with the seeding,” UConn coach Kevin Ollie said. “You always want a [higher] seed, but I’m happy for our team. This is their prize for a great season and a great tournament we played down in Memphis. Now, we’ve got to see what we’re going to do with that prize.”
That’s the diplomatic answer, of course. Ollie and the Huskies have to live with the seed handed to them. Once Thursday’s game arrives, the seeds will be forgotten. Or will they?
There’s no doubt the Cardinals are one of the eight best teams in the nation as this tournament begins.
“Louisville, 4 seed, I mean that team beat us three times,” Ollie said. “I think they are one of the best teams in the country.”
I believe committee chair Ron Wellman when he says there is no discussion of conference affiliation during the decision making process. But the reaction to the AAC, across the board, leads you to believe something was working against the conference. Was it a lack of respect for teams from a new league? Was it something in the metrics presented by the conference? Was this the result of a conference that clearly presented five nationally ranked teams – and five below average, rather weak Division I teams? It so, the bottom half needs to start pulling its weight.
But it was hard to tell, even when Wellman answered questions about Louisville and SMU.
“Louisville is on the four line, which is a very good line,” Wellman said in a conference call Sunday night. “You look at that line, and we not only have Louisville, we have Michigan State, UCLA, San Diego State. Last year two of the Final Four teams came from the four line. That could very well happen again this year.
“Louisville finished the season exceptionally strong. If anybody watched Louisville play the last couple weeks of the season, you could easily predict that they could be a national championship contender again this year. But the committee’s responsibility is to look at their entire body of work. When we looked at the entire body of work of Louisville versus everyone else on the board, we felt that they were slotted appropriately at the No. 4 line.”
Wellman calls it appropriate. What it really seems to be is one of the worst calls ever by the selection committee. We could list all the computer rankings that support Louisville as a No. 2, but the most damning evidence might be that Louisville coach Rick Pitino told Louisville reporter Rick Bozich he had better not comment on his team’s seeding.
I’m sure Pitino was mad. I mean, what more can the committee do to Louisville at this point? In the Midwest they are surround by No. 1 Wichita State, No. 2 Michigan (the Wolverines should have been a No. 1 over Virginia), No. 3 Duke and No. 5 Saint Louis. Maybe this is evidence that we should listen to former Indiana coach Bob Knight, who has always said there is no justification for our obsession with No. 1 seeds.
Wellman called the SMU decision “very difficult.” Coach Larry Brown’s team was a great feel-good story in college basketball. But now the Mustangs are headed to the NIT. Brown will need a tougher schedule. He had built a great program for next season, so hopefully the message from the committee was clear.
“SMU was the first team out,” he said. “As we looked at SMU, they certainly passed the eye test. They’re a very good team, had a very good year. When you’re making these selections, you’re looking for differentiators. Is there anything that stands out, on the positive side or negative side of the ledger, that will cause you to absolutely take that team or really look at prioritizing and selecting other teams?
“In SMU’s case their downfall, their weakness, was their schedule. Their non‑conference strength of schedule was ranked number 302 out of 350 teams eligible for the tournament. It’s one of the worst non‑conference strengths of schedule. Their overall strength of schedule was ranked 129. 129 would have been by far the worst at‑large strength of schedule going into the tournament. The next worst at‑large strength of schedule was 91. Really the glaring weakness about SMU was their schedule.”
So, if you are UConn and got knocked down to a No. 7 seed, I guess you just shut up and rejoice in being in the tournament. Florida is the No. 1 overall seed and the Huskies beat them. Yeah, yeah, I know Florida wasn’t at full strength yet. But I was there. UConn won the game. The Huskies were 7-5 against RPI top 50 and 10-7 against the top 100. Virginia, which got a No. 1 seed, was 4-4 against the top 50 and 12-6 against the top 100.
Virginia lost at Green Bay, lost at Tennessee and lost at Maryland. But the Cavaliers are a No. 1 seed.
Is that because Virginia plays for the right alphabet mix? Is that because Virginia is from the ACC and not the AAC? Nobody is going to say that. But it seems that way, doesn’t it? That’s very unfortunate. And with Louisville headed to the ACC next season, it’s just one more dragon the AAC must try to slay.
No one said it was going to be easy. It never is when your league is made up of outcasts and leftovers. But it’s just one more reason to worry about UConn basketball until the Huskies can find another conference affiliation.
Speak Your Mind