Underachievers in Tournament - to date - more to follow

I did not track Round 1 (fka as play-in) because who cares which play-in team underachieved - but one of them sure has overachieved (VCU Sweet 16)



Round 2 (fka Round 1)

#6 Xavier lost to #11 Marquette (who is overachieving for now as they made Sweet 16)

#8 UNLV lost to #9 Illinois - not a big upset here

#5 Vanderbilt lost to #12 Richmond (Sweet 16 vs Morehead St. who beat Louisville)

#4 Louisville lost to #13 Morehead State

#6 Georgetown lost to #11 VCU who also ripped Purdue enroute to Sweet 16

#7 Texas A & M lost to #10 Florida State who beat UCLA enroute to Sweet 16

#6 St. Johns lost big to #11 Gonzaga who BYU creamed

To sum up: Big conferences as a whole, especially the Big Least.

Due to truncations of the original post that occured for some reason - I will continue here.



Round 3 (fka Round 2)

#3 Syracuse lost to #11 Marquette - one way to ensure a Big East win - play each other

#4 Texas lost to #5 Arizona who BYU creamed earlier this season

#3 Purdue lost to #11 VCU who played in and beat USC and Georgetown

#2 Notre Dame lost to #10 Florida State

#1 Pittsburgh lost to #8 Butler



So the 11 Big East teams are down to Marquette who got in by beating a Big East team and UCONN who may actually be good. Go SDSU. Get rid of UCONN and Kemba Walker. Notice that in all - only a minor upset of UNLV 8 vs 9 and Texas 4 vs 5 underachieved anywhere in the West and Texas lost to a western team, Arizona, BYU has already beaten. Also UCLA and Washington almost advanced against highly seeded eastern teams almost in their own back yard.



The BIg East and other eastern teams clearly get too much love, excuses, and grease from the selection committee. The proof is on the court.



Stay tuned - more of the same to come. The BIg East will be lucky to get 1 team in the Elite 8.

What it shows--once again--is that the Big Conference/East Coast bias has been exposed, and that the committee needs to include more teams from smaller leagues. VCU was panned as a pick, and people wanted Colorado or other schools in ahead. Now VCU is Sweet 16 bound, the Big 12 has 1 team left and the committee looks good with that selection. Honestly, I think a rule needs to be in place that no more than 50% of any teams in a league can get in, and that you have to have a .500 or better record in league to qualify, unless you win the conf. tourney. If you can not finish top half of your league, you do not deserve it anyway.

Cougarbib2 wrote:
The BIg East and other eastern teams clearly get too much love, excuses, and grease from the selection committee. The proof is on the court.



Stay tuned - more of the same to come. The BIg East will be lucky to get 1 team in the Elite 8.

What makes no sense is that they loaded the tournament last year the same--with tons and tons of Big East teams that nearly all were gone that first week. I don't understand why they are allowed to continue to do that.

Lawboy wrote:
What it shows--once again--is that the Big Conference/East Coast bias has been exposed, and that the committee needs to include more teams from smaller leagues. VCU was panned as a pick, and people wanted Colorado or other schools in ahead. Now VCU is Sweet 16 bound, the Big 12 has 1 team left and the committee looks good with that selection. Honestly, I think a rule needs to be in place that no more than 50% of any teams in a league can get in, and that you have to have a .500 or better record in league to qualify, unless you win the conf. tourney. If you can not finish top half of your league, you do not deserve it anyway.

I would agree with this. It's TV that's ruined it all at the same time we have more games on TV. In the old days of football, The Big Ten only allowed one team to go to a bowl game and you couldn't go in successive years. Now while I think that was a bit of an extreme and I do like it better that more teams can go, I would agree that if a team isn't at least .500 in their conference, then they don't belong in the Big Dance. You have to earn it.

NCAA Tournament teams: 64

Big East Tournament teams: 11

Percentage of Big East teams that made the tournament: 68.8%

Percentage of NCAA Teams filled by Big East Teams: 17.2%

Percentage of Sweet 16 filled by Big East Teams: 12.5%

Big East W/L record in NCAA Tourmanent: 9-9