2015 NCAA Tournament: Blueblooded Benefit of the Doubt

The 2015 NCAA Tournament Bracket was announced today with some surprises. The biggest ones: UCLA, Texas, and Indiana entering the tournament field with a bye.

Colorado State was all smiles coming into Selection Sunday. That tends to happen when you are nearly a lock to make the 2015 NCAA Tournament.

After finishing 3^rd in the Mountain West Conference with 26 wins during the regular season and being ranked in the AP Poll at No. 24 for two weeks in the middle of the year, an NCAA bid seemed on the horizon.

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Blessed with an 29^th ranked RPI, they sat their best player J.J. Avila in the hopes that he would be rested and healthier for their NCAA Tournament run. Turns out, that became the Rams moment of hubris that doomed them in what has become a tragedy of a season.

Instead of dancing at the 2015 NCAA Tournament, Colorado State will be shuffling their feet at the NIT, headlining a list of the biggest snubs to not be allowed the opportunity to compete in college basketball’s biggest tournament. Head coach Larry Eustachy summed up the state of the team in a depressingly concise matter.

“They’re devastated, and they should be, because they’re certainly an NCAA tournament team,” Eustachy told The Coloradoan.

So if Colorado, who sported a top 30 RPI, and had wins against tournament teams like San Diego State and Boise State (two tournament teams) could not make the tournament, who took their place? Just one of the more storied franchises in college basketball that no one thought should’ve been in the tournament.

In a move that smells like a quick cash grab, the NCAA Selection Committee selected the UCLA Bruins to participate in the 2015 NCAA Tournament. This is coming off a year where UCLA went 2-8 against teams in the RPI top 50. The committee tried to justify their UCLA selection.

“We felt they were gaining steam,” Barnes explained. “They did have a good strength of schedule. They were playing better against tough competition. An example is the last game against Arizona. I think the eye test was also a plus in putting them in the field.”

Yes, they played against better competition, but they were also blown up by better competition. Double-digit losses to Kentucky, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Utah, Gonzaga, and Arizona are all a testament to that.

Just because you play better competition, does mean you are a good team just by making an appearance. It would be like showing up to boxing fight against Mike Tyson: yeah, you would be there and last a round maybe, but that doesn’t mean you’re on the same level as an actual fighter that has not fought him yet.

Not only did UCLA get a favorable seeding avoiding a first four bid, traditional powerhouse programs Indiana and Texas also received higher seeds than predicted. In Busting Bracketology, we had Indiana and Texas in the last four in, competing in the First Four matchups. However, the NCAA felt they garnered a first round bye, even though Texas had a ranked 42^nd ranked RPI, and Indiana had a 56^th ranked one.

UCLA Bruins /

UCLA Bruins

Texas went 3-12 against the RPI top 50, while Indiana went 4-9. Did they belong in the tournament? Absolutely, but their resumes would suggest that they should be playing for the right to join the field of 64, rather than skating into it.

This string of decisions that are oozing with favoritism is why the NCAA is losing any sort of credibility. To give favorable seeds to programs with larger fan bases that travel is one thing, but to give better, albeit smaller, schools no shot to increase their national presence in the sport is deplorable, especially when they clearly earned the right to do so.

Smaller schools like Colorado State or Murray State (who was also denied an NCAA Tournament bid) does not have the financial backing that a Kentucky or Duke has. A NCAA Tournament bid would bring in a lot of extra revenue for their program and help expand the recruiting range, making a bigger impact on the NCAA landscape.

So the NCAA will allow the bigger schools that will bring in more ticket sales at the expense of giving an opportunity to schools that may have deserved it more. Yes, every year there will be teams that have a case to where they should have been given a bid, but nothing compares to this year’s obviously preferential treatment towards big time programs.

Next: 2015 NCAA Tournament Printable Bracket

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