Central Track Contributor
Hey, NCAA Tournament Selection Committee: You Suck.
Dear NCAA Tournament Selection Committee,
How's it going today? You enjoying the first couple of rounds of your totally like not at all for profit basketball tournament?
We have to tell you: As citizens of North Texas, we're more than a little upset with you right now. Don't get us wrong, we'll take any excuse we can to day-drink around the office, so we're thankful for your service on the one hand. But, on the other, we're just struggling to look past your glaring omission of Southern Methodist University from your field of 68 contenders.
We mean, we know you've had your differences with SMU in the past. If a school we trusted had made us look like complete idiots, we'd be a little upset too. And, hell, hiring known recruiting scofflaw Larry Brown couldn't have helped matters.
That doesn't mean we'd punish the kids that have worked so hard to put Pony basketball back on the map, though.
So we have to ask: What on earth were you thinking?
Let's take a look at some of the teams you choose to include over the Mustangs:
• Colorado. The Buffaloes had an alright season, we guess. They finished in the middle of the Pac 12 pack and managed to get one decent road win, beating Oregon in Eugene. But, c'mon. They've struggled to score all season and didn't break 60 in their last three games before the tournament. It shouldn't have been a surprise to you when they lost by 90* yesterday to Pitt. We sure hope that such an abysmal display was something you wanted, considering how you dragged those poor kids away from their legal cannibis-filled mountain wonderland to Orlando so they could be embarrassed on national television. If it had been SMU instead, at least we could have seen Larry Brown make this face. (*I may not have made it all the way to the end of Pitt/Colorado. I had better things to do, like, y'know, watch the newly painted handrails dry at my apartment complex.)
• Xavier. Let's see: Xavier had exactly one good win — at home against Creighton — and finish tied for fourth in the discarded husk that is now called the Big East. The Musketeers proceeded to acquit themselves about as well as you should have anticipated in the tournament, losing by double digits to a woefully under-performing N.C. State team in an opening-round game. But, you're right, it really was better to have Xavier in the field than the resurgent local university from the Final Four's host city.
• Kentucky. Despite being the preseason No. 1, Kentucky has underachieved all season. It's not like they got better towards the end of the year, either. The Wildcats lost three of their last four regular season games and were accurately described by college sports writer Pat Forde as a “dumpster fire.” We understand that SMU had a terrible loss to Houston in their conference tournament. But Kentucky has had terrible losses like that all season long. You want to include UK because of their name and their unfulfilled potential? Fine by us, so long as you just stop pretending that the selection process is about the current season's body of work and that it's fully reputation-blind.
We could go on and on — Stanford and BYU are pretty terrible choices for the field, too, for example — but, more than anything, we're just very disappointed in you, Selection Committee.
I mean, we fully expect the NCAA to be a bastion of accountability and integrity.
But, instead, you let us down.
Pony Up,
Stephen Young and the rest of the Central Track staff
