With UCLA out of the picture, I had no rooting interest in
Selection Sunday.
Still, I had to get my bracket fix and give the Bruins a chance
to compete somehow. So what did I do?
I created the Bottom 64.
It’s like the NCAA Tournament, only the opposite. The
loser goes on. The winner goes home.
I looked at the same criteria the NCAA selection committee looks
at, only the inverse. Teams are rewarded for bad losses, a poor
strength of schedule, a low RPI, and how badly they tanked during
the end of the season.
Typically, the Top 40 teams in the RPI are locks in the
tournament. The bottom 40 out of 327 will also more than likely get
in. The last place team from each conference gets an automatic bid
into my Bottom 64.
Three teams stood out below the rest as No. 1 seeds: North
Carolina A&T (1-26), Columbia (2-25) and Tennessee State
(2-25), the team famous for having a woman, Teresa Phillips coach
it. She only coached for one game. It’s not her fault the
team isn’t any good.
Where do you place St. Bonaventure, the quitters? They did
finish with seven wins, after all, of the season-ending forfeits,
but should get rewarded for actually quitting on the season. Still,
it would be weird to give them a top-4 seed, since I used the old
women’s tournament rule that let the top four seeds in each
regional host the first two rounds. I gave the Bonnies a No. 5
seed, in the East, pairing them with Cornell.
The remaining locks are obviously Texas-Pan American, (10-20)
Radford (10-20), Indiana Purdue Fort Wayne (9-21) and Western
Carolina (9-19). But which bubble teams do you include, and which
do you not?
With three spots left, I was considering four teams: UMKC
(9-20), LIU Brooklyn (9-19), Jackson State (10-18) and our very own
Bruins (10-19).
UMKC and LIU Brooklyn got in for achieving nine or fewer
wins.
So, Jackson State or UCLA? Well, the Tigers won their last two
regular-season games and only lost their SWAC tournament game by
two points, showing me that they didn’t deserve to be in the
Bottom 64. And the Bruins? Well, I’m pretty sure the Daily
Bruin IM team couldn’t blow an 11-point lead with three
minutes left with a possible NCAA tournament bid on the line. UCLA
is the last team in, a No. 14 seed against Long Beach State (5-22)
in the first round of the West.
The brackets have been set. The first two rounds would be played
in all kinds of cities, ranging from huge metropolitan areas like
Buis Creek, N.C., Thibodaux, La., Westpoint, N.Y., Princess Anne,
Md. and Boiling Springs, N.C. to small towns like New York, N.Y.,
and Bronx, N.Y. All of those cities are homes to schools with a top
four seed in the Bottom 64.
Now the fun part. The Stat Geek enters his crystal ball-shaped
calculator to figure out who would win (lose) the tournament.
In the South Region, Campbell, the school, not the soup, would
rise above all others and even lose to North Carolina A&T,
doubling its win total. Campbell goes to the Final Four.
Everybody’s favorite team in the region: No. 9 seed The
Citadel. It feels the need to include “˜The’ in its
name.
In the East, No. 6 High Point would play a high-level of losing
basketball, but still beat Fordham 30-26. Savannah State would roll
over and lose in the Sweet 16, but manage to beat St. Bonaventure,
who doesn’t show up. The Bonnies manage to lose all four of
their games 2-0 due to their players quitting.
In the Midwest, Phillips might fire her head coach, take over
and lead her team to a win. Unacceptable in the Bottom 64.
Army, whose players are correctly more worried about their
studies, training and the war in Iraq, would advance to the Final
Four.
The West Regional Final would include Chicago State and UCLA,
which got there because the players stopped caring and listening to
Steve Lavin, who would be allowed to coach in the tournament.
Naturally, UCLA was bounced from the Sweet 16 ““ again.
In the Final Four, St. Bonaventure would again quit and forfeit
the semifinal and final, making it the Bottom 64 champion.
Something tells me the Bonnies won’t be hanging any
championship banners from their home court.
The Stat Geek has IUPUI beating UNC Asheville in the NCAA
tourney finals. Youppi! E-mail the Stat Geek at
gquinonez@media.ucla.edu.