NCAA: Absolutely worthless

By Stephen Baker CPKSports Senior Writer

The NCAA basketball year really consists of three separate seasons: the out-of-conference season, the conference schedule, and of course, the tourney. We our about halfway through the second season and a cursory search around the internet can yield approximately 50 million sample brackets “if the season ended today.”

They are all absolutely worthless. Two of the criteria for selection are conference record and the last ten games. Only eight teams have ever made the tournament with a sub-.500 conference record, all of them from the biggest six conferences (the BCS conferences in football). Unless your team is already virtually guaranteed of a .500 conference record in a BCS conference, don’t read too many bracket projections yet. The remaining games count almost threefold.

Threefold? How is that? Well, there is a team’s overall record, one of the largest concerns. The worst record to get a bid was 17-13 and that has happened only twice. However, these last games will count under the last 10 probably, the conference record, and will have a significant impact on the RPI. There are rarely creampuffs in the conference slates with RPI’s in the low 100s. These are big, big games.

How important is the RPI? #34 Southwest Missouri State missed last year and #35 Wake forest missed in 1998. SMS has the misfortune of playing in a mid-major and Wake posted a sub-.500 conference record. Sorry. Only three teams have ever made the tourney as an at-large squad with an RPI over 60. And there is our bubble: RPI ranks 35 through 60.

Who gets in and who gets left out? Well, big conference teams get preferential treatment. A 20-win season is practically an automatic invite for a team in a BCS conference. No team has ever failed to secure birth with 20-wins and a membership in a BCS conference. The near-majors of the A-10, C-USA, Mountain West, and WAC have had 11 teams miss with 20 wins since the tourney changed its selection criteria in 1994. The mid-majors? Don't even ask. Only 19 have received an at-large bid in those seven seasons, and every one except one won its regular season title and lost in its conference tourney.

So the cards are stacked against the little guys. It’s hard to work yourself into a lather though, since at least they do have a real chance to compete for the title. This isn’t football. The conference champion does get to go on to the Big Dance for a shot at the championship however slim the chances.

What have we learned? Well, they are no tourney locks right now except for perhaps Stanford and Duke. It’s just too early to start printing invitations, but it’s getting near time to start looking at teams’ qualifications. We’ll start breaking down each conference next week. Until then, write the phrase “on the bubble” 100 times.

Article provided courtesy of www.cpksports.com