![]() ![]() Bonaventure scheduled about as well as it probably could in facing Hofstra, Ohio, Buffalo, Siena and Syracuse. They didn't exactly schedule a gauntlet in nonconference play, but St. They won three games against the RPI Top 50, including a road game against No. 30 in RPI, which is usually a stone-cold lock, throw-away-the-key at-large bid range. Speaking of little guys who got screwed, in what world is St. Each conference has the right to award the automatic bid however it sees fit, and based on how chaotic the minor-conference tournaments were this season, it's time for some of them to explore those alternative avenues to be best represented in the Big Dance. That's just the way everyone does things. There's no rule stating that conferences are required to send their tournament winner to the NCAA tournament. It's disgusting, but, really, Monmouth's beef should be with the MAAC, rather than the selection committee. Freaking John's, and yet apparently, those short bursts of success meant more than Monmouth playing great basketball for four months. Syracuse went 3-8 away from home, got hot from three-point range for three days in the Bahamas, had the luxury of facing Duke when the Blue Devils were exhausted and playing their worst basketball of the season, lost to St. The whole thing just sends a horrendous message to the little guys around the country. Or is it Monmouth's fault that Wichita State, San Diego State, Valparaiso, Saint Mary's, Akron and Hofstra all lost in their respective minor-conference tournaments, making it extremely difficult to decide which small schools were most worthy of an at-large bid? 31 and finished the season at 52 and 166, respectively -partially because playing 20 games in the MAAC will do that to a computer resume, but largely because Georgetown and UCLA ended up being much worse than we could have possibly imagined. Too many things were out of Monmouth's control, the first of which was all five of those quality wins losing value as the season progressed. How can Monmouth possibly not be one of the 38 (36 plus the ineligibles) best at-large teams in the country? How can the selection committee claim to watch thousands of hours of games in venues all over the country and decide that this team didn't deserve to get in? They did exactly what the selection committee has been telling small schools to do for years -doing what Murray State failed to do last year -and they even did it in a season where two sure-fire tournament-worthy teams (SMU and Louisville) were ineligible for the tournament. They won at UCLA, Georgetown and Rutgers. They beat USC and Notre Dame on neutral courts. And they didn't do it against the little sisters of the poor. The Hawks played 17 true road games and a total of 23 games away from home, going 13-4 and 17-6, respectively. And click here for B/R's Printable Bracket.Īll around the country, there are small schools screaming at the selection committee: "What more do you want from us?!"īut no team is screaming louder or more justifiably than Monmouth. Sign up and play Bleacher Report's Bracket Challenge now for a chance to win the Ultimate Sports Trip to four events of your choice. These are the teams and conferences we feel have the biggest gripe with the committee, due to low seedings, tough first opponents or not making the 68-team field at all. It's both the beauty and the frustration of a bracket built by people, trying to combine computer numbers with what their eyes tell them. Those athletic directors and commissioners on the selection committee did the best they could. 1 seed and that certain matchups simply aren't fair. The selection committee could have done much better, though -particularly with the little guys, which we'll get into shortly.īut even if there were 100 committee members deliberating for 100 days over 100 teams, we would still find a way to argue that team No. No matter what the committee did, half a dozen teams were going to feel unjustly left out and just about every No. Let's acknowledge one thing right away: This year was impossible. The 2016 NCAA tournament bracket has been revealed, and it didn't take long at all to start arguing over which teams were royally screwed by the selection committee. John Calipari is not happy about Kentucky's No. ![]()
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