Revenge of the Realignment Haters

Before we get into the bracket, I though I’d offer up a few words to close out the 2011 Big 12 Tournament.  The tournament is a funny phenomenon—it’s amazing how much it “matters” while it’s actually going on.  I don’t think anyone really gives two rips about it as regular season play trudges along, and quite honestly, about a day after it’s over every year, everyone goes back to NOT caring about it.  It’s kind of like deciding on a whim to go see a non-Oscar-quality film with your wife.  You didn’t put a lot of thought into it, and it’s not going to change your life, but it’s fun for the 90 minutes you sat and held hands in the dark.

All that said, it was really nice to get a second crack at Texas in the finals.  I’ve tried not to make a big deal out of this and look like I was making excuses for the first game against the ‘Horns this year and all of that, but let’s face it.  Texas played a physically and emotionally drained Jayhawk team in the first meeting.  No need to rehash everything now, but they had not slept, they came out on adrenaline, and it just ran out.  Not so on Saturday.  They wanted Texas, they got in their faces the night before the game (before Texas had even played A&M) and told them as much, and they went out and kicked their butts.  Got to a big lead, held them at arm’s-length for their run, and finished strong.  Let there be no doubt as to who was the best team in the league this year.

NOW FOR MY INITIAL BRACKET REACTIONS….

I haven’t had a chance to get down to the intricacies of this bracket yet, but my initial feeling is that the committee hates the Big 12 this year.  Or at LEAST they hate the schools which caused all the conference realignment drama this past year and took this as their opportunity to punish them a little for their misbehavior.

FIRST OF ALL… the committee isn’t made up merely by the power brokers the way the BCS is.  There are PLENTY of people on the committee that have every reason to HATE the idea of the “mega conference,” which pushes them farther away from competition, and even FARTHER from the revenue.

Here’s your committee (with those who have a vested interest in HATING realignment in bold):

Eugene Smith, chair, Ohio State (one for the power conferences)

Stanley Morrison, UC-Riverside (one for the little guys)

Jeffery Hathaway, UCONN (big guys)

Lynn Hickey, UT-San Antonio (mid-major city)

Mike Bobinski, Xavier (another for the smalls)

Dan Beebe, Big 12 Conference (a “big guy,” BUT a guy with every reason to screw the trouble-makers)

Doug Fullerton, Big Sky (doesn’t get any more “mid-major”)

Ron Wellman, Wake Forest (big)

Steve Orsini, SMU (small)

Scott Barnes, Utah State (certainly not in the BCS)

Clearly, if the members of the committee had a vested interest in punishing teams involved with conference realignment, they would have the votes to inflict their punishment THIS YEAR, and I think that maybe they did.

Let me get the ones with no right to gripe out of the way:  KU and K-State should really like their seeds.  KU was a no-brainer for the #2 overall, and they got the #1 seed in the region they wanted.  For Kansas State, a #5 is EXTREMELY generous.  They just got back into the Top 25 for the first time in months, and then proved they probably didn’t deserve it with a Big 12 Tournament flame-out.  But then again, KSU wasn’t one of the naughty Big 12 schools who shook things up last year, so the committee gave them the benefit of the doubt.

A&M should feel slightly shafted, and perhaps the lightness of their shaft was due to the fact that they didn’t REALLY want to participate in conference shake-ups, but they were still guilty of playing three sides during the deal (Big 12, SEC and PAC 10).  A #7 isn’t too far off, but does seem a little unfair, relative to the #5 that Kansas State got.  They had IDENTICAL conference records, but A&M beat KSU head-to-head, AND actually won a tournament game.

But as we’ll see in a minute, proving you’re better than Kansas State didn’t pull a lot of weight with the committee this year.

Missouri as a #11 is kind of interesting.  Mizzou has probably been punished enough by the public humiliation they received for practically BEGGING to be a part of conference realignment, but getting left out in the cold when the Big 10 went for Nebraska in stead.  But an 11-seed is a little bit of further insult-to-injury for the Tigers.  Granted, they didn’t finish well.  But they’ve gone from maybe as high as a #4 or #5 all the way down to a #11 pretty quick.  I spoke with my friends a few weeks ago, and suggested that if Missouri lost the last three games of the regular season (which they ended up doing), then they would be a bubble team IF they also lost their opening Big 12 Tournament game.  Well, they won that game and, apparently, STILL were a bubble team.

With the way the play-in games worked out, you know that Missouri was somewhere between the 5^th and 7^th last at-large team in the field.  A loss to Texas Tech in Kansas City might have pushed them into the play-in, or perhaps even out of the field altogether.

Texas was a MAJOR offender in the conference shake-up banter of 2010, and they benefited the most in the long-run, being allowed to keep their unequal share of the conference revenue AND start their own ESPN network.  So they had to be punished, and the committee did so with a #4 seed.  Texas was a sure #1 (in most expert’s eyes) just about 3 weeks ago.  They fell, without question, but most people still thought they deserved a #2.  The committee could have sent them to a #3, and no one would have thought anything of it.  But dropping them TWO SPOTS was a clear message:  you have misbehaved, and you deserve to take a little medicine.

AND THEN THERE’S COLORADO.

I know what Colorado’s RPI says, and I know their non-con schedule sucked.  But come on, now.  NOBODY had Colorado even on the bubble.  Everyone thought they were in, and there was no doubt.

Except in the mind of the committee.

Colorado, obviously, was a big part of the shake-up—the ONLY school of the two that actually LEFT the conference to truly be a contender for a Tournament spot.  It was the committee’s chance to land their biggest blow, and they took it.  I don’t feel bad for Colorado, per se, but I do feel terrible for Tad Boyle.  The team he built (Northern Colorado) is enjoying their first ever Big Dance.  And the team he turned around to the surprise of everyone (Colorado) is sitting at home watching them.

Again, Colorado beat Kansas State not once, but THREE TIMES.  And you mean to tell me that there are 37 better at-large schools than Colorado?

Look at it another way.  Here are a list of Big 12 schools, and the number of wins they accumulated against their fellow conference schools who are headed to the NCAA Tournament:

Kansas = 5

Texas = 5

COLORADO = 5

A&M = 3

KSU = 3

Missouri = 1

Colorado never beat KU or A&M, but were a cumulative 5-1 against Missouri, Kansas State and Texas.

I don’t know any way to put it other than this was a punishment, or at least a message to stay in line.