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My semi-hypocritical tournament selection stance

While hypocrisy does bother me a great deal, I'd be lying if I said I was never a hypocrite. Chances are each and every one of us has been hypocritical at one point in our lives or another. So, when I say I can't stand hypocrites, to not sound hypocritical in saying that, I'm just referring to those whom are hypocritical so frequently, people are often times shocked when they're actually consistent.

In saying that, I find myself being slightly hypocritical when it comes to the tournament selection for March Madness.

After the field of 68 was announced last night, I overheard ESPN basketball analysts Dick Vitale and Jay Bilas debating one another about which teams belonged in the tournament.

Dick Vitale stood up for the little guy (Murray State in this case) and basically said, "It's all about winning games! Murray State won 25 in a row at one point! They went three months without a loss! I mean, are you kidding me?!? It's about winning games, baby! How can you deny these kids the shot at going to the tournament when all they did was win games?!? That's not right and that's not fair!"

Jay Bilas then went in the I'm-a-dick-lawyer-but-am-thinking-with-my-mind-and-not-my-heart route, basically saying, "If LSU played Murray State on a neutral court, are you telling me you think Murray State would win? Is that what you're saying? Are you seriously saying that? That's what I thought! Case dismissed!"

While I can understand Jay Bilas' argument, I tend to side with Dick Vitale on the matter, which is contrary to my position in college football. In the current college football playoff format, I want the four very best, most deserving teams to battle it out for the right to the national championship. In college basketball, though, sure, I want the best of the best to be in the tournament, however, when it comes to the bottom few slots, I'd much rather see the Colorado States, Temples, and Murray States than 18-13 power conference teams like UCLA, Oklahoma State, and Indiana. If we want to speculate how these teams would fare against one another on a neutral court, chances are we'd typically side with the power conference teams. This is largely due to the fact that week in and week out, they were forced to play tougher in-conference competition than the mid-major schools, and given a couple of decent wins against such competition, they were better able to prove they can compete against good, tournament-caliber competition than the mid-major schools. However, while this may all be true, the mid-major teams didn't have nearly as many opportunities to prove themselves against tournament-caliber opponents as the major conference teams, so if a major conference team is on the bubble, this means they often times failed against tournament-caliber competition - so why should we reward them with yet another opportunity instead of providing a mid-major team with AN opportunity? 

UCLA finished 11-7  (20-13 overall) in a very mediocre Pac-12 conference, where their lone "impressive" win was a home victory against Utah in the mid part of the season. LSU and Mississippi were both 11-7 in a rather mediocre SEC conference (22-10, 20-12 overall, respectively). The Big XII was more respected than the two before-mentioned conferences, yet both Texas and Oklahoma State finished 8-10 in conference play and 20-13 and 18-13 overall, respectively. Indiana was 9-9 in Big Ten play and 20-13 overall. The Big Ten may be seen as one of the better conferences overall, but failed to live up to expectations this season. These big name schools didn't prove through the course of the regular season that they deserved to be in the NCAA Tournament. Sure, if LSU was paired up with Murray State on a neutral court, the odds would suggest that LSU would come away with the victory. However, LSU, like UCLA, Mississippi, Oklahoma State, Texas, and Indiana, had numerous opportunities to prove to the college basketball world that they belonged in the field of 68, without any ifs, ands, or buts about it. They failed to do that, so it doesn't make a great deal of sense to me to reward them with yet another opportunity over a team like Colorado State, Temple, or Murray State, whom all had much better records than them and simply just want to be given AN opportunity. 

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