Wake up, people!

This is a Big Eastcast blog exclusive.

Did you see this garbage?

Don’t click on that link, because you’re only encouraging their folly. It’s a bracket projection for the NCAA Tournament based on 20 media members from CBS, ESPN and CSTV. (Please don’t click on it — I will describe it herein.)

Apparently these 20 folks felt that now was as good a time as any to come together and project an NCAA Tournament field. That sounds fine to me. It is February, and we have enough of a sample for every team to have a good inclination about what the pecking order looks like.

The problem is this: those 20 folks did a TERRIBLE (ALL CAPS — I’ll use bold from here on out) job. I usually don’t bother very much with other people’s bracket projections, because I don’t want to be swayed into a groupthink scenario. But Dante, my beloved podcast partner, kept giving me tidbits from this bracket, and I couldn’t resist such incompetence.

The first major problem was that their automatic bids were all over the place. Apparently Charlotte and Oregon are in as automatics, despite not being anywhere near first in their respective conferences. In fact, judging by this, it appears that the Pac-10 got two automatic bids. Bully for them! Also, Davidson is one of the last teams left out of the field. I found that interesting, since Davidson is undefeated in conference and would seem to be a logical automatic bid recipient. But no — apparently 9-4 Appalachian State is the automatic qualifier. Also, Drake is undefeated, but of course, Creighton got the automatic bid from the Valley. Maybe they’re guessing who will eventually win the conference tournament or something equally preposterous — they didn’t factcheck it.

A couple of other things about this illustration in incompetence: What is the justification for Drake being seeded behind Indiana? Is it the fact that Drake has only lost once all year? Or is it because Drake is 28 spots better in the RPI? Or maybe it’s because Drake is 7-1 against RPI top-100 teams, and Indiana is 5-3? More likely? It’s because Indiana is Indiana and Drake is Drake.

Also, what possible justification could there be for keeping UMass out of the field at this point? The Minutemen have nine wins against RPI top-100 teams, including top-25 teams Rhode Island and Dayton. (I know the URI win came last night, presumably after this field had been selected, but even without it, UMass still had eight.) Let’s compare UMass to Syracuse, a team that I, by the way have in my bracket projection. Syracuse doesn’t have any wins to compare with the Dayton and URI wins. The Orange has beaten four fewer RPI top-100 teams, and, oh, yeah, UMass won at Syracuse. It’s for these reasons that UMass is 21 spots ahead of the Cuse in the RPI, though just 10 spots ahead in my customized DCBI. And remember, I think Syracuse is NCAA worthy at this point — that’s how far in the tourney the Minutemen should be. I know UMass is only 4-4 in conference, but almost every game has been against the A-10 chalk. Compare that to Rhode Island, which has wins against George Washington and St. Bonaventure. Clearly this panel did not even consider the differences in strength of schedule within the conference. The frightening part is that the real committee can have blind spots just as large.

WAKE UP, PEOPLE! (CAPS and bold)

I’m sure there was more refuse to observe, but I had to get on with being a sentient being, so I closed the window. (Don’t click on it, I’m warning you.) It’s this kind of anti-logical thinking that makes my head steam. If this is a preview of what we’re going to experience on Selection Sunday, then I better leave for a nation devoid of sharp objects for several months.

Again, here’s my bracket projection. I guarantee it’s better than any of the drivel the 20 dudes came up with yesterday. And mine is probably not even one of the best projections out there.

Let’s stop sucking up to ESPN and slurping on Joe Lunardi, get our collective heads out of our asses and start using our brains!