Mississippi State & Minnesota Should Listen to These Lessons
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Let’s get one thing straight before I get started with this little rant: Mississippi State and Minnesota don’t deserve to be in the NCAA Tournament in they don’t win their respective conferences on Sunday. But neither do Illinois, Florida, Rhode Island, Seton Hall, or any other teams that are sitting on this proverbial “bubble” that we have come to know and love.
Come to think of it, Virginia Tech, Florida State, Wake Forest, and probably about 12 other teams shouldn’t get the right to play for the National Championship either.
And you want to expand this field to 96 teams next year???
Regardless of whether I like it or not, the Golden Gophers and Bulldogs are both going to get to win their way onto the dance floor the old fashioned way: by winning their conference tournaments.
These two teams should both take lessons from the teams before them. Washington was considered a bubble team until it removed all doubt by winning the Pac-10. San Diego State could say the same thing with the Mountain West.
The other lesson that Mississippi State and Minnesota should take into consideration: Don’t complain if you don’t get into the field.
The Golden Gophers have some unsightly losses on their resume, including a 28-point defeat to Michigan which capped a season sweep for the Wolverines over Minnesota, a loss at Northwestern, and ‘L’s to Portland and Miami. Winning more than one legitimate road game (@ Illinois) in conference would’ve helped quite a bit, too.
Hey Mississippi State, why the heck are you losing at home to Rider? It doesn’t matter that that loss came on the first night of the regular season. It’s Rider! Tournament teams don’t lose to Western Kentucky or to Arkansas, Alabama, or Auburn in conference play. The only road wins in SEC play came at Ole Miss, LSU, and South Carolina.
Don’t get me wrong… Anyone that wins their conference tournament is deserving of a spot in the field of 65. It’s all of these bubble teams that annoy the heck out of me.
I’ll admit this much: I smirked just a bit when Utah State and UTEP both lost their conference finals, which is probably going to take a bid away from one of these teams that doesn’t deserve to go dancing.
And once again, I’d love nothing more than to see the Dawgs and Gophers take care of business, pull upsets in their conference finals, and take automatic bids to the dance. Then there will be two more teams deserving of their tickets to the NCAA Tournament, while more teams will be left at home, complaining that the system doesn’t work and that there should be more teams allowed in the NCAA Tournament.
But don’t worry, all of you 21-10 teams. When the field expands to 96 teams, you’ll all be in the tournament. Then all we’ll have complaining is all of the 18-14 teams why they’re not allowed to play for college basketball’s biggest prize.
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