Robbed?
It's hard not to feel like Syracuse got jobbed a bit by the NCAA Tournament committee. I'm sure that all of the commentators will do a better job than I can of recounting the various reasons why SU, not to mention Drexel, better deserved a spot than, say, Arkansas or Illinois. It's actually pretty tempting to dissect schedules, but I'll leave that to the "experts." Bottom line is that I think that Syracuse would have been in the neighborhood of a 7 to 10 seed, and faced with, at best, a showdown with a top 10 team for a trip to the Sweet 16.
I think, after the past two years--which featured prominent meltdown losses to Texas A&M last year and to the legendary Tyler CoppenWHO?-led Catamounts of Vermont the year before--that the committee is sending Syracuse a message. The Orange have been mildly dangerous (G'Town and Marquette this year, last year's Big E tourney), but mostly they've been squarely above average. When G-Mac took off for Euroball and the occasional used car commercial, it was hard not to figure that this would be a down year, a couple of nice surprises notwithstanding.
Oh well. On the bright side, I won't guess wrong for the 3rd year running about when SU will lose. Here are links to ESPN's printable brackets: Men & Women.
March on.
Comments
Add Texas Tech, Stanford, Purdue, and Georgia Tech to the list of "made it on conference cred." (And I'm tempted to say Duke, but I'll hush.)
At least this makes for an interesting NIT.
Posted by: cbd | March 11, 2007 10:40 PM
I'm mad about Air Force not getting in. 23 wins. An RPI of 30. Yes, they had 4 losses at the end, but how do they not get in over Stanford, when not only do they have more wins, better wins, a better RPI, Air Force pasted Stanford at Stanford by over 30 (and don't get me started about Texas Tech, who Air Force also had a better RPI, record, and a neutral court win over...).
Posted by: DocMara | March 12, 2007 11:36 AM
Robbed! Like you, at least I don't have to worry about mistakenly picking the Orange for a first-round win.
And now all of my SU affections will be redistributed among their Big East brethren.
Posted by: Derek | March 12, 2007 4:45 PM
I'm a big Illinois fan, and even I have to say that the wrong orange team got in. And Arkansas? Are you kidding me?
Posted by: Lance | March 12, 2007 9:23 PM
Well, Derek, the Big East brethren are pretty thin this year. I figured that either SU or WVU would get in, and probably SU. But neither? The ACC has more teams in the tournament than the Big East? That's. just. wrong. BP and I are fixin to pick Georgetown to avenge the Big East and take it all, so somebody can start sending us the brackets and collecting our dough.
Posted by: senioritis | March 12, 2007 11:06 PM
Yep. Filled out my bracket. Watch VCU over Duke. Don't bet on ODU over Butler. Mason clobbered ODU in the CAA tourny and they barely won the game before that.
See you guys at Cs.
Posted by: B | March 14, 2007 8:02 PM
Can you say "rock chalk Jayhawk?"
Posted by: Alice | March 20, 2007 9:49 PM