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| Monday, February 4 Mid-majors feeling NCAA squeeze By Joe Lunardi Special to ESPN.com |
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It happens every year about this time. No, not an exciting Super Bowl (that happens about once a decade). I'm talking about the annual "squeeze" of the mid-majors. You know, the brave souls who travel the land (and seas!) in November and December in search of respect. Season after season, the national rankings see cameo appearances from Ball State or Butler or Western Kentucky or Pepperdine. Or maybe the list is Utah State, Valparaiso, Southern Illinois and Wisconsin-Green Bay. The names don't matter as much as the pattern. A handful of such schools will triumph in early-season, non-conference games against major competition (usually on a neutral court). The pundits will suggest, "This is the year the mid-majors are really given a chance in the NCAA Tournament." And then conference play begins. A Butler loses on the road at Detroit. A Western Kentucky is forced to play Morris Brown instead of a made-for-television, marquee opponent. The RPI of the contending mid-majors takes a beating. And the "Super Six" conferences -- the ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-10 and SEC -- gobble up all the at-large bids to March Madness. It doesn't matter that the mid-majors who survive this annual purge acquit themselves quite well at the Dance, because we know their number will always be limited by a system that is biased from the start. Another rip at the RPI? No, I generally like and defend the Ratings Percentage Index (another column for another day) as one tool in the NCAA selection process. What I don't like are the way the built-in advantages of the power conferences skew the process. There needs to be a built-in correction somewhere to balance the scales. Unless and until the NCAA can find a better way to factor in scheduling inequities, home-road disparities and other financially-driven considerations, I am going to keep putting forward the Lunardi Plan. All Division I teams will have to become "tournament eligible" each season, much like college football teams become "bowl eligible." To do so, they will have to play .500 or better in their conference. That wasn't very hard, was it? Here are two other stipulations:
Of course, the occasional major conference member will get screwed by the Lunardi Plan. In fact, 23 such schools have been at-large selections (with losing league records) since the NCAA field expanded to 64 teams. The aggregate tournament record of those teams is 16-23. Only four reached the Sweet 16, and none were a legitimate Final Four threat. The point is that, while a 16-23 record for any group of middle NCAA seeds isn't bad, it is hardly an endorsement of the present system. Today, an NCAA-caliber Arkansas team is 4-5 in the SEC. If the season ended today, the Razorbacks would miss the Dance under my plan. Is this fair? Probably not. But it is even more unfair that less than half of this group -- Gonzaga, Pepperdine, Western Kentucky, Butler, Ball State, Bowling Green, Kent State, Utah State -- will not make the 2002 tourney. None have the obvious advantages of an Arkansas, but all have legitimate NCAA credentials. I say open up an extra two or three at-large slots per year. Since someone is always going to get screwed, let's at least rotate the victims. Joe Lunardi is the resident Bracketologist for ESPN, ESPN.com and ESPN Radio. He is also editor and publisher of www.bracketology.net. Write to Joe at jlunardi@home.com. |
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