This is an editorial post disguised as a game recap. I attended the Atlantic 10 championship game last Sunday, when general admission tickets dropped to $10. It was held at Barclays Center, so I had no plan to write about it, until some comments were made by a high-ranking official before the start of the NCAA tournament.
The two teams playing were #6 Duquesne and #5 VCU, so the winner would be dancing while the loser would go home (or to the NIT as it turned out). I got there very early and took a seat six rows behind the Duquesne bench. As the game neared, the seats around me were filled in by their fans, who had reason to be excited as their team had won seven in a row, including a 69-59 triumph over VCU in Richmond just two weeks earlier. Could they get their first tournament appearance since 1977?
When the Dukes stormed to an 11-2 lead, and pushed that to 36-18, the fans around me went crazy. It was among the best atmospheres I have experienced in sport: the long-suffering team on the verge of victory.
Naturally, the second half saw the Rams chip away and they were within a point with 1:36 left. The tension was unbelievable; I recall the Blue Jays World Series wins back in 1992-93 as having a similar impact on my psyche at the time and I was watching on TV. These fans were near tears as the final minute played out. Fortunately, the Dukes bent, but did not break, as Jake DiMichele finished a long possession with a layup to get the lead back to 3.
The fans were still on edge, but VCU's Max Shulga missed a jumper and the Rams had to foul. Dee-Dee Grant missed the front end of the 1-and-1 and VCU had another chance to tie, but Zeb Jackson's three was off, leading to another foul, the 10th on VCU. This meant two shots, and Jimmy Clark III made both to give the Dukes a 53-48 lead with just 21 seconds left. Another missed trey from VCU followed by two more freebies from Foussenyi Drame should have ended the suspense but Jackson hit a three and then Jakub Necas missed both of his free throws for Duquesne. A four-point lead with nine seconds left is not a guarantee, but Jackson missed the desperation three and Clark III finished things with two more free throws as Duquesne ended 47 years of futility with a 57-51 win.
At the final whistle, the fans breathed a huge sigh of relief and then erupted into cheers that made the building shake. The fans knew what was at stake with the conference championship: a berth in the NCAA tournament, known as March Madness. A couple of days later, SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey made some idiotic comments: "We are giving away highly competitive opportunities for automatic qualifiers [from mid-majors], and I think that pressure is going to rise as we have more competitive basketball leagues at the top end because of expansion". In other words, there should be no automatic bid for mid-majors. So this game would have been meaningless and the emotions those fans felt would have never happened. Hell, they probably wouldn't have bothered to make the trip from Pittsburgh.
Anybody who watches college basketball even casually knows that mid-majors upsetting Power 6 teams is the lifeblood of the tournament. And as it turns out, those "highly competitive" teams from those greedy conferences are not so competitive after all. SEC champ Auburn lost to Yale (who I had seen the day before in their Ivy semifinal win over Cornell) and Kentucky was embarrassed by Oakland. As for Duquesne, they were seeded 11th and traveled to Salt Lake City to face BYU (now in the Big 12), who they dispatched in a game similar to this one. Meanwhile, Virginia humiliated themselves with a 14-point first half while losing to Colorado State in the First Four.
The first team out of the tournament was Oklahoma who went 8-10 in Big East play, losing to Houston, Iowa State, Kansas, Texas and Baylor. Why should they even be considered, having already lost to those five tournament teams? Indiana State lost to Drake in the Missouri Valley tourney and ended up shuttled to the NIT. Why does one loss matter to a mid-major team, but 10 losses don't matter for a team in the P6?
Simply put, nobody, and I mean nobody, who follows this sport wants to see more mediocre P6 teams at the expense of quality mid-majors. As has been demonstrated over the years, there is not that much difference between middling P6 squads and those at the top of the lesser conferences. In 2022, St. Peter's went to the Elite Eight while FAU and San Diego State advanced to the Final Four last season. Of course, two 16-seeds have been defeated over the past few years. I wrote about this 7 years ago but it has fallen on deaf ears.
How can Sankey be so out of touch with the sport and its fans? Money. He later clarified his comments to say that more P6 teams should be in if the tournament expands, rather than eliminating the autobid. Ugh, their greed knows no bounds. The regular season should mean something and anyway, 67 games is already enough. We don't need another 10 games featuring 20 crap teams. To be clear, no club under .500 in conference play should ever make the Big Dance, unless it wins the conference tournament, as NC State did after going 9-11 in ACC play (and advancing to the Sweet Sixteen after wins over Texas Tech and upstart Oakland).
I am not the only one to say this, as all of college basketball Twitter has echoed a similar viewpoint, and enjoyed the schadenfreude as the SEC teams fall by the wayside. But seeing this Duquesne win while surrounded by hundreds of their fans made it clear why the smaller schools deserve their chance to shine. There simply is nothing like it in sports. I don't think the autobid will disappear, and frankly more mediocre P6 teams in the tournament just means more chances for upsets. But maybe the best thing to do is leave the best three weeks in sports alone.
The NIT
Meanwhile, VCU was one of four A-10 teams that went to the new NIT, where they beat Villanova in Philadelphia. Many thought Villanova should have been in the bigger tournament, but fortunately they were terrible in the Big East showdown and showed no improvement despite playing at home.
The NIT changed its format this year so that regular season conference champions that don't win their tournament no longer receive automatic bids (this applies only to mid-majors obviously). Instead, the top two teams in NET rankings (not worth explaining this metric as it is garbage) in each P6 conference that don't make the NCAAs get autobids (though they can decline, as 11 schools did). As the tournament is on ESPN, I'm guessing they are behind this change, expecting better ratings for Georgia-Xavier or Butler-Minnesota. But rewarding these forgettable teams at the expense of places like Quinnipiac (who lost to St. Peter's in the MAAC tourney) is just plain wrong. The haves get more games and more revenue while the smaller schools suffer. Sadly, however, money talks and expect to see March Madness devolve as more and more bad teams get into the tournament.
Best,
Sean
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