Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 16, 1992 TAG: 9203160061
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Jack Bogaczyk
DATELINE: CINCINNATI LENGTH: Medium
Only the NCAA Basketball Committee knows for sure.
On a Sunday evening when Virginia's December road woes became a subject of NIT-picking, the reconstituted Metro shockingly provided four teams in the 1992 NCAA field.
The Metro had no automatic bid this season, and the conference received none of the top 24 seeds in the field of 64. But UNC Charlotte, Louisville, Tulane and South Florida squeezed in among seeds 7-11 in three of the four regions.
The Metro's emergence was as stunning as the exclusion of a couple of bubble clubs - including UVa (15-13) - and the inclusion of Iowa State, which became the Big Eight's sixth entrant despite a 4-9 down-the-stretch run and a 5-9 league record.
Consider that in last week's Sagarin ratings - supposedly close to the NCAA's power index - the Metro, as a conference, ranked ninth. Among the Sagarin team ratings, Tulane, UNCC and South Florida were the lowest-ranked at-large clubs to make the NCAA.
Virginia, at No. 29, was the highest-rated eligible team - Nevada-Las Vegas is serving its NCAA sentence - not to make the field. West Virginia, which squeezed in with Stanford as one of the two lowest-seeded at-large teams at No. 12, was 37 Sagarin slots higher than South Florida, at No. 88.
So how did the Bulls get a bid? They won seven of their last eight games.
As always, the screams of the little guys - including James Madison and Richmond but most prominently Wisconsin-Green Bay - were loud and appropriate. Thirty-three of the 64 teams came from seven conferences, including the Metro.
Of course, those leagues are going to dominate the field because they feed on themselves in the power ratings. The lesser conferences have a tough enough time and then hurt themselves more when upsets occur in conference tournament play.
Evansville won the Midwestern Collegiate Conference tournament title here Saturday night, protecting its top seed and getting an NCAA Midwest berth. However, Aces coach Jim Crews said leagues like the MCC are foolish to play a conference tournament.
"Maybe I'm not very smart, but we certainly don't build our season around two or three days [of a tournament]," Crews said. "We play a whole season, and then it comes down to what you do in two days.
"I don't agree with tournaments for leagues like ours. I think it's ridiculous. All it is, is for money."
And Crews got an NCAA bid. Imagine what was said at Wisconsin-Green Bay, James Madison, Richmond, Manhattan, Penn State and Southern Illinois when they weren't in the brackets revealed on the tube.
You can bet there was plenty of March madness on those and other campuses.
The Southeast Regional begins at Riverfront Coliseum on Thursday with a loaded bracket - Ohio State, Oklahoma State, Arizona, North Carolina, Alabama, Michigan, St. John's. Temple is the Southeast's No. 11 seed. That's deep depth.
The East bracket appears the weakest, and defending national champion Duke's road to its fifth straight Final Four has few prospective potholes.
The ACC got five bids, one fewer than expected. Wake Forest finished behind UVa in the ACC standings, but nudged the Cavaliers in the NCAA's eyes. UVa's putrid performance in its ACC Tournament loss to Georgia Tech three days ago had to hurt.
Apparently, UVa needed a first-round victory to make it an NCAA team. Strength of schedule is supposed to help a team in the NCAA's eyes, but it hurt the Cavaliers, who didn't win enough early before going .500 in the ACC.
by CNB