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UNIFanSince1983 wrote:NCAA bubble was too big for a team like Evansville to get in to the NIT this year unfortunately. It is a shame as they would have likely gone far, but that schedule really hurt.

UE deserved a bid. Unfortunately, there were WAY too many Regular season champions that lost their Conference tourney then didn't get an at-large. That locked up a lot of auto-bids.

Here is a link to a great interview between Rece Davis and John Calipari regarding Kentucky's seeding and how mis-seeding hurts not that team, but the team they face. He used WSU's 31-0 team as an example. It hurt WSU that the committee mis-seeded Kentucky and how it's a motivator for him to his team ("Don't believe in us" theory).

I think many teams were mis-seeded this year, starting with most of the Big 10 who were greatly underseeded IMO.

He also goes into how they need to have consistent criteria for selecting teams. One year it's RPI, another SOS, and so on. Great interview.

Watch the video, the article says very little...

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketb ... aa-tourney

Stickboy46 wrote:

UNIFanSince1983 wrote:NCAA bubble was too big for a team like Evansville to get in to the NIT this year unfortunately. It is a shame as they would have likely gone far, but that schedule really hurt.

UE deserved a bid. Unfortunately, there were WAY too many Regular season champions that lost their Conference tourney then didn't get an at-large. That locked up a lot of auto-bids.

That happens almost every year though...12, 13, 14, 16. Granted this year was 16, but that is why you have to have an NCAA profile to get in.

I didn't even have Evansville among my last 8 projected out of the NIT.

Runner-up teams from the #14 conference usually don't get at-large bids to the NIT, folks. 8 teams with better RPI's than Evansville got left out of the NIT.

UE trying to win the SWAC championship this year kept them out of the NIT. It's all on the Aces staff. They're good enough to be an NCAA team, but didn't even give themselves a shot at the NIT.

That's what's wrong with this conference.

TheAsianSensation wrote:I didn't even have Evansville among my last 8 projected out of the NIT.

Runner-up teams from the #14 conference usually don't get at-large bids to the NIT, folks. 8 teams with better RPI's than Evansville got left out of the NIT.

Also teams with a nonconference SOS of 210 and an overall SOS of 207 don't get at large berths either. The real injustice was Monmouth not getting in the big dance. Why they were penalized for 200+ RPI losses and Syracuse wasn't sets a bad precedent.

Aces fans can blame the conference tournaments, but if St. Bonaventure or Monmouth were at-larges, that means only 13 NIT auto-bids - the same as last year. That would cause 2 at-larges like Michigan or Vandy to be in the NIT. Teams that still had better profiles than UE.

Evansville's fate was sealed as NCAA or bust when the schedule came out last summer.

And the Cuse is officially the worst at-large team in the history of everything.

Agreed. As one of the commentators on the selection show said, any team that loses to St. John's should not be in the NCAA

UNIFanSince1983 wrote:NCAA bubble was too big for a team like Evansville to get in to the NIT this year unfortunately. It is a shame as they would have likely gone far, but that schedule really hurt.

Had the ball bounced the other way and UE won UNI wouldn't had made the NIT even with their schedule.

Good luck to the Panthers in the tourney.

I think they got a fair seeding (maybe even a good one) and the matchups give them every chance to advance.

I wouldn't be surprised at all to see UNI dancing into the 2nd week. Go Panthers!

TheAsianSensation wrote:The play-in game is a concern, but that half of the region is do-able for Wichita. As reasonably good as one could hope for.

I always look forward to your commentary on The Tournament.