Continuing Hatred of the NCAA Selection Committee

I've never been a huge, huge proponent of the "East Coast Bias" theories floating around. But as UNLV wrapped up their impressive upset of Wisconsin in the phony NCAA tournament, Jim Nantz noted that the Rebels had been unhappy with their 7-seed coming into the tournament. That got me thinking... Southern Illinois got a 4-seed...Butler got a 5-seed...and UNLV, a team with 28 wins in a high-mid-major conference, gets a 7-seed? THAT'S east coast bias.

So I went back and checked Joe Lunardi, who I believe picks a fairer bracket then anyone. Sure enough, he had UNLV seeded at FOUR. He had the Salukis at a 3 (very fair, considering that the MVC is probably stronger than the Mountain West). But he had Butler as a 7.

Similarly, Nevada got a 7-seed. Lunardi had them seeded at 5.

Here's what I think: the Pac-10 can claim to be underrated all they want. Their top teams generally play well enough in the NCAAs, and they regularly get into the final four or better. But they don't regularly out-perform their seeding. The east coast knows about the Pac-10. We know Arizona always has talent. We know Oregon tends to have good guards and chokes early in the tournament. We know UCLA has a fantastic coach that has them playing good defense. And of course, we know about Gonzaga.

But I didn't hear anything about UNLV all year. I never know what's going on in the Mountain West until their conference tournament winds down. We know about Nick Fazekas because he's had such a long, successful career. But I probably don't respect the WAC quite as much as I should.

I think that the committee treats the Pac-10 fairly relative to the other majors, but I don't think they treat the western mid-majors fairly relative to the mid-majors east of the Mississippi.

Bottom line: I'm slightly more concerned about San Diego State (out of the WAC, facing Syracuse Monday night in the NIT) than I was 30 minutes ago.