Busting Brackets
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NCAA Basketball: Is the Selection Committee ruining college basketball?

By Shaun Gordon

SAN ANTONIO, TX - MARCH 31: Townes (Photo by Chris Covatta/Getty Images)
SAN ANTONIO, TX - MARCH 31: Townes (Photo by Chris Covatta/Getty Images) /
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CHARLOTTE, NC – MARCH 16: The UMBC Retrievers bench reacts to their 74-54 victory over the Virginia Cavaliers during the first round of the 2018 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament at Spectrum Center on March 16, 2018 in Charlotte, North Carolina. (Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images)
CHARLOTTE, NC – MARCH 16: The UMBC Retrievers bench reacts to their 74-54 victory over the Virginia Cavaliers during the first round of the 2018 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament at Spectrum Center on March 16, 2018 in Charlotte, North Carolina. (Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images) /

Ramblers and Retrievers

Five or ten years from now, no one outside of Philadelphia will point to this year’s NCAA Tournament as the year that Villanova won the title, but people will remember this tournament for two reasons.

It’s the year UMBC shocked the world and became the first No. 16 seed to knock off a No. 1 seed, taking down the top overall team, Virginia.

It’s also the year the Loyola-Chicago, a No. 11 seed, made a run to the Final Four and Sister Jean, a 98-year old nun, became one of the most popular people in America.

People tune into the NCAA Tournament with one of two rooting interests. Either they’re rooting for the team they picked to win, or they’re rooting for the underdog.

Everybody loves a Cinderella story.

But the biggest Cinderella of this year’s tournament, Loyola-Chicago, likely wouldn’t have even been invited to the Big Dance if they’d have had any say in it.

The Ramblers won the Missouri Valley Conference tournament, gaining an automatic spot in the NCAA tournament. They finished the season with an impressive 28-5 record.

And they got an 11 seed.

So did the last four at-large qualifying teams. So the Selection Committee considered the Ramblers to be pretty much even with those teams.

But if they’d slipped up and lost one game in the MVC tournament, it’s a near certainty that they’d have found themselves on the outside looking in. That one extra loss to a sub-par team would have given the selection committee all excuse they needed to leave the Ramblers out in the cold.

And college basketball would have missed out on one of the greatest stories of the season.

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