NCAA Tournament Snubs: Auburn and St. Mary's Should Have Been in the Field

In an interview on CBS' NCAA Selection Special, Committee Chair Mike Slive, the Commissioner of the SEC, made the remark that the committee did not look at leagues, but only at teams. Mr. Slive, maybe that approach should be revised if that is indeed the way the NCAA Selection Committee does business.

In recent years, fewer and fewer small conference teams have been selected as NCAA Tournament at large teams. There are 34 such NCAA berths available. When a small conference team has, say 26 wins in the regular season, a la St. Mary's, does having one bad night in the conference tournament justify leaving that team out of the NCAA field entirely?

In the case of Auburn, this was probably the best Auburn basketball team in years, maybe the best since Charles Barkley played for the Tigers in the 80's. The Auburn Tigers won 22 games, but more impressive than that, Auburn had won 9 of their last 11 games, including wins over Florida, NCAA Tournament team LSU, and not one, but two victories over NCAA Tournament team Mississippi State.

One of the criteria the NCAA Selection Committee constantly talks about is the how a team did in their last 8-10 games coming into the NCAA Tourney. Even though Auburn lost to NCAA Tournament team Tennessee in the SEC Tournament semi-finals on Saturday, the Tigers beat Tennessee in the regular season. By earning a split in two games with Tennessee, Auburn's record versus the other SEC teams who did make the NCAA Tournament was 4-2.

That's not to say that Auburn should have been selected to the NCAA field instead of Tennessee. Of course, the NCAA Selection Committee had to take Miss State, the SEC Tournament winners over Tennessee. The thing is, all of these teams should be in the NCAA Tournament. I know the SEC was down in basketball this season. However, here are a few facts to consider:

The Big 12 got 6 teams in the NCAA Tournament field. Arkansas, the last place team in the SEC at 2-14 in the league, beat Big 12 stalwarts OU and Texas. OU is a #2 seed and Texas a #7. Both lost to the last place team in the SEC, yet the Big 12 gets 6 bids and the SEC only 3? Auburn was 2-0 vs the Hogs, by the way, including a 22 point thumping of the Hogs in Fayetteville, in case OU and Texas want ot use playing on the road as an excuse in those losses.

How can the NCAA Selection Committee justify taking 6 teams out of the Pac-10, keeping Arizona's 25 year NCAA Tournament streak alive? The Big 10 always seems to have 6 or 7 teams in the NCAA Tournament with 4-5 of the teams going belly up in the first round games. Last year Arkansas got their first NCAA Tournament win in 9 years over Indiana, a Big 10 team.

This year, the Big 10 got 7 teams into the NCAA field. Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota all were among the last teams selected. No way all three of those teams are better than Auburn and St. Mary's. In my opinion, the extremely quick and athletic Auburn Tigers would run any of those three lumbering Big 10 squads off the floor. Two of those teams might be deserving to be in the field, but not all three.

Maryland is another team that is not as deserving as Auburn to be in the NCAA Tournament, but they are in the sainted ACC and head ACC tub-thumper Dick Vitale would not sit still for an ACC team with a winning record being left out of the Big Dance.

Texas A&M is another team that is less deserving than Auburn or St. Mary's. In short, Texas A&M, Arizona, Maryland, Wisconsin and Michigan are the tournament shockers in the field of 65. Auburn and St. Mary's are the NCAA Tournament snubs.

If the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee really wants to put together the best NCAA Tournament field possible, they need to start considering conference affiliation. In the future, there is no way the SEC deserves only 3 NCAA Tournament teams while the Big 10 annually gets 6 or 7 only to have most go home after the first round, Mike Slive needs to step up for the SEC if that's what it takes for the league to get it's due.

For the SEC to get only 3 NCAA Tournament bids is a farce. There should have been at least 4, even in a down year. If the Big 10 continues to get 7 bids, a case could be made for the SEC to get 5 this season. With most teams in the SEC other than LSU being very young, the SEC will be strong the next couple of years. The number of SEC teams in the NCAA Tournament should increase in the future. If it doesn't, Charles Barkley, a famous Auburn alumni should be given a soapbox. Maybe he should anyway with his old team being the main NCAA Tournament snub in 2009.

Source: NCAA bracket