Results prove NCAA Tournament Committee grossly under-seeded the Pac-12
The Pac-12 Conference gets very little respect from the BCS Football Committee. Apparently, the NCAA doesn’t value the quality of Pac-12 basketball either.
March Madness is down to the final eight teams. Three of those teams are from the Pac-12, and both were seeded sixth or worse. It’s obvious the Tournament Selection Committee grossly underrated the conference.
Anyone who follows a Pac-12 team knows the term “Eastern Bias.” Most voters, pollsters, and/or decision-makers in college sports live east of the Mississippi River. By the time Pac-12 games start, most of them already called it a day. They don’t see Pac-12/ West Coast teams play.
Also, because of COVID-19 scheduling restrictions, Pac-12 teams didn’t play as many pre-conference games. So, gauging the quality of play was difficult. Or so the selection committee members would tell someone who asked. Here’s the catch, it wasn’t difficult.
As in most conferences, the regular season is a grind. The other Power Conferences got credit for that. For whatever reason, the Pac-12 didn’t get the same consideration. That’s just lazy.
Because Oregon State came from last place to win the Conference Tournament doesn’t mean the rest of the Pac-12 should be punished or downgraded. Georgetown had a losing record before the Big East Tournament. The most significant consequence of the Hoyas winning it all was it knocked St. John’s. (and maybe Seton Hall) out of the Big Dance. The three remaining at-large Big East teams, Villanova, Creighton, and Connecticut, received five through seven seeds. So the logic doesn’t hold.
Flawed System
Then they turn to their NET rankings system. It’s NCAA’s latest formula to rank teams. If NET is supposed to be the solution, then why was Colgate (ninth in NET) a 14-seed? It’s an excuse that the NCAA pulls out when they explain themselves.
Digging deeper, either the NCAA’s NET rankings are flawed, or their seeding criteria is. If Western teams (except for Gonzaga) stayed closer to home due to COVID restrictions, any initial PAC-12 conference rankings were too low. USC, Oregon, and UCLA certainly have proved that so far. In this pandemic environment, Pac-12 teams, and the conference as a whole, had to be evaluated differently than in other years, mostly against itself.
Of course, the NCAA has its flaws, but one of them shouldn’t be the failure to prepare and work hard so they can run a fair tournament. Big-time college football is basically out of the NCAA’s hands now. Their number one job is running the tournament, and they blew it before the first tip-off.
What do you think about the NCAA’s poor evaluation of PAC-12 basketball? Let us know in the comments section below or on social media.