ShareThisOnce a year, in the middle of March, a favorite topic for sports columnists (well, at least one of them) is to rip the NCAA tournament selection committee.
Because the identities of the committee members remain obscure to the public, it's easy to take the group to task without making the attack personal. This is a guiltless pleasure, with the emphasis on the pleasure.
So the nameless, faceless college administrators are criticized for being out of touch (they work in an office, behind locked doors), and for playing favorites (mediocrities from major conferences scored most of the at-large berths this year, at the expense of mid-majors Davidson and Saint Mary's), and, of course, for sucking up to the big-city schools on the East Coast (to increase TV ratings: it's all about the almighty dollar) while ignoring the West Coast (because the games begin too late for any of these stuffed-shirt fogies to watch beyond the first timeout).
See what I mean? Once the stereotypes start flowing into free association, the grumpy wonks on the selection committee, deprived of fresh air, sunlight, exercise and fresh vegetables, are seen as college sports' version of Evil Empire operatives.
But now that this year's 65-team field has been pared to 16 regional semifinalists, I must admit: The committee got it right. Wait, not just right. The committee got it darn near perfect.
The four No. 1 seeds -- Louisville, Connecticut, Pittsburgh and North Carolina-- have advanced mostly without much of a sweat. So the committee was responsible for determining the best of the best, and the best of the best are a collective 8-0.
The four No. 2 seeds? Alive and well are Memphis, Duke, Oklahoma and Michigan State, whose 74-69 victory over Southern California on Sunday provided some suspense. But the team with the plodding, execution-style offense prevailed over the team with crazy-good talent and a burst of late-season momentum.
The four No. 3 seeds? Syracuse, Kansas, Missouri and Villanova are alive and well, too. The committee's decision to reward Villanova with what amounted to a home-court advantage in Philadelphia was scrutinized, questioned and even vilified, but what's a home advantage typically worth? Three points? Four? The Wildcats on Saturday beat UCLA by 20.
(Memo to those Bruins miffed by the hardships of traveling to Philadelphia, and the refs who failed to sympathize with their plight: Shaddup.)
The committee finally misfired with the fourth seeds: Wake Forest, an unraveling-at-the-seams team waiting to be upset, didn't have to wait long: Cleveland State put Wake to sleep in the first round. And Washington, despite enjoying a virtual home-floor advantage in Portland in its second round matchup against Purdue, couldn't overcome an untimely case of stage fright in the first half.
But given the survival of the other No. 4 seeds -- Gonzaga and Xavier -- the selection committee went 14-for-16 the first week. The two party crashers in the Sweet 16 are Purdue, seeded at No. 5, and 12th-seeded Arizona.
Nothing the committee did this year provoked as much controversy as including Arizona. At-large tournament teams are supposed to be able to win away from home. (The Wildcats' record of road kills this season begins, and ends, with victories over Oregon and Oregon State.) At-large tournament teams are supposed to be on a roll. (The Wildcats lost five or their final six.) At-large teams are supposed to win 20 games. (The Wildcats finished the regular season 19-13, 9-9 in the Pac-10.)
Arizona's RPI -- its ratings percentage index, a complex equation best described as The Only Rating That Really Matters -- was 62. In terms of RPI, Arizona isn't the least qualified at-large team to get into the NCAA tournament. That distinction belongs to New Mexico, which had a 74 in 1999.
But the Wildcats, at the very least, are prominent in the discussion. And yet, they traveled to Miami and beat fifth-seeded Utah on Thursday, and they had no problems with Cleveland State on Saturday. Does Saint Mary's go to Miami and win two games? No.
Upon reaching the crossroads between making a safe, romantically appealing choice (Saint Mary's) and deferring to the dreary status quo (Arizona), the committee went for the dreary status quo--- and got it right.
The selection committee, by the way, is nameless no more. Kudos to Michael L. Slive, Thomas J. O'Connor, Christopher Hill, Daniel G. Guerrero, Laing E. Kennedy, Stanley M. Morrison, Eugene Smith, Jeffrey A. Hathaway, Lynn Hickey and Mike Bobiniski.
These folks seeded the top 16 teams in the tournament, and went 14-for-16. This is not to be confused with brewing a giant pot of coffee and figuring out how to split the atom before lunch, but still ...
If America's most celebrated bracketoligst, President Obama, needs some help on predicting trends beyond the Final Four, he knows where to look.
(Contact John McGrath at john.mcgrath@thenewstribune.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
columnMust credit the News Tribune in Tacoma, Wash.
