Why the NCAA Tournament Selection Process Still Doesn’t Make Sense

What we’ve got here, Keith Gill, is failure to communicate.

Or maybe I should direct my ire not at Gill, the Sun Belt Conference commissioner and this year’s NCAA Tournament selection committee chair, but at CBS for bungling the delivery of the biggest news of Selection Sunday.

Somebody help me out, because the committee did the right thing -- they put Miami (Ohio) in the tournament -- and somehow it still feels like Gill was backpedaling and playing defense on the topic throughout Sunday.

Miami, as in the “other” Miami, had a historic 31-0 regular season, the fourth perfect regular season this millennium, but the RedHawks had neither “beaten anybody” nor won their games all that convincingly. Four wins, including three in the Mid-American Conference, needed overtime and a handful of others came by two points in regulation.

But winning is winning, and prejudiced analysts like ex-Auburn coach Bruce Pearl were saying some wild things about whether Miami deserved an at-large NCAA bid, which only intensified after the RedHawks were promptly upset in the MAC quarterfinals.

When the selection show came around Sunday, college basketball journalist Seth Davis declared on CBS that “Miami (Ohio) was the last at-large team selected. They were one spot away from not being in this tournament.” And the accompanying graphic showed the “Last Four In” to be NC State, Texas, SMU and Miami (Ohio). It’s widely understood through the prevalence of pop bracketology that those lists are in a sequential order, and being last on said list signifies you were the last team into the field.

Cut to Gill’s interview on CBS, as well as further damage control on other networks, as he swore up and down it was not the case.

“Miami (Ohio) was not the last team selected into the field,” Gill said. “They came in before NC State, Texas, and SMU. And when we did our scrubbing process, those teams scrubbed above (Miami) relative to the predictive metrics and also the difference in the quality of the wins.”

So CBS’s “Last Four In” graphic ordered the at-large teams by overall seed -- which had Miami (Ohio) last, even if the committee wrote their name down before Texas a few minutes prior, which does feel like splitting hairs. On the NCAA’s overall seed list, Miami is 44th and VCU is 45th; Gill made sure to explain that if VCU hadn’t won its conference tournament, it wouldn’t have been an at-large.

Got all that? I never thought I’d hear the word “scrubbing” so much on a selection show. I’ve watched these all my life, and I’ve never felt less like I understand the process that’s going on behind those doors.

If Seth Davis looks at a list and understands Miami (Ohio) to be the last team in the field, the general populace who only watch college basketball four weeks a year will be inclined to believe the same.

Miami was 31-0, friends. The point is that the RedHawks should have been safely in the field, not teetering on the bubble. I’m sure they don’t terribly mind going to Dayton, an hour away to campus, for a veritable home game against SMU. But it reflects poorly on the committee and CBS alike that 

1.) This came so close to being screwed up and 2.) The messaging about how a team ended up where it did is a Gordian knot to be untangled across multiple interviews.

There wasn’t much else to critique this year, as the four No. 1 seeds were fairly obvious, but let me lodge two more complaints:

St. John’s won 19 of its last 20 games, captured the Big East regular-season and tournament titles and is... a five seed.

UConn, with a nearly identical overall record, is a two seed. Purdue had an abysmal end of the regular season, swept the Big Ten tournament and was boosted to a two seed. “But it really it is a full body of work,” Gill later said. “One of the things I would say about St. John’s is their results in the nonconference did not have the same depth and quality as some of the folks that are ahead of them.” OK, then maybe the proper point of comparison is No. 1 Florida. Both teams started sluggishly and took four losses against similar nonconference strengths of schedule, but the Gators sure weren’t held back for that reason.

Just admit you’re doing an eye test thing about the strength of the Big East. I’ll tell you right now, St. John’s will demolish No. 4 seed Kansas if it comes to that in the second round.

I’d be furious this morning if I rooted for Miami. The real Miami this time, Florida, The U. That’s because the Hurricanes are the No. 7 seed in their region but must play No. 10 Missouri in St. Louis of all places. Why should the lower seed get a home-court advantage that blatant?