NCAA Selection Committee Selection of Oklahoma over RU

[Drayon10]

Well...

I spoke to a very reliable source yesterday about the members of the NCAA selection committee. There was a member on the committee that said in a private conversation that the last spot came down to Rutgers and Oklahoma. They spent 30 minutes discussing this last selection and the majority picked Oklahoma due to their strength of schedule and the fact Rutgers lost their last regular season game to worst ranked team in the big ten (Northwestern) which they said was the last straw in their eyes.

From what I was told, the person on the committee did push for Rutgers but the overall decision was more like a punishment for how bad down the stretch Rutgers played. Also, there seemed to be other issues, which included race and how there was a last minute switching of the brackets due to a race issue being raised in the committee meeting. I was told that all the black head coaches were all originally put on one side of the bracket but this was changed after a concern was raised about how all the head black coaches would knock one another off if the brackets were not changed.

That this would not have been a good look for the committee because people would notice this. There were other things mentioned but I was too upset to focus on anything else, Oklahoma was 16-14 and still got in the NCAA tournament. I can't even bare to watch anymore this season but I will now be pulling for Dawn Staley since RU isn't playing.

I was not happy to hear that Rutgers was punished... not fair at all.

We will have to look to next year and hopefully we will learn from this grave mistake the committee made.

 

[RUClassof67]

And Oklahoma responded well by being blown out by DePaul.

 

[scarlettb]

Wow! I can't believe it came down to this (actually, I can, but it disgusts me.). I too will root for Dawn as I think she faces some of the same challenges that Vivian faces. Mostly I will root as an ABC fan (anybody but Connecticut) now that my Dayton Flyers were eliminated - although I still have my sister's alma mater Florida State to root for (of course both FSU and SC are in UConn's bracket). i think Mississippi state or Texas have the best chance to upset UConn, although I doubt anyone will.

 

[BeKnighted]

So, Oklahoma did have a really good SOS. (Warren Nolan says it's #2, although that's been updated for the NCAA results, so it possibly isn't the exact number the committee had.) But Rutgers was in the top 20 (currently 17 at Warren Nolan; I think it was 16 before the tournament started). There's not really much difference between 2 and 17 (or 16) in terms of actual SOS. And it's certainly not enough to make up for 20-12 (with a conference tourney win) versus 16-14 (with a first round conference tourney loss).

The funny thing is that I correctly predicted Oklahoma would be in based on the mechanical formula of RPI top 35 plus winning conference record in a major conference, which has been right all but once in the last 19 years. But when you drill down on Oklahoma's record, you realize the Sooners really didn't deserve to be in the tournament.

 

[Drayon10]

Wow! I can't believe it came down to this (actually, I can, but it disgusts me.). I too will root for Dawn as I think she faces some of the same challenges that Vivian faces. Mostly I will root as an ABC fan (anybody but Connecticut) now that my Dayton Flyers were eliminated - although I still have my sister's alma mater Florida State to root for (of course both FSU and SC are in UConn's bracket). i think Mississippi state or Texas have the best chance to upset UConn, although I doubt anyone will.

Scarlet B, I am with you and I forgot to put that in my original post... that is anybody but UCONN. I think Mississippi State or Notre Dame is the team to pull that off.

 

[bac2therac]

the bottom line is this team had every opportunity to correct its horrible finish and failed....they blew like a 7-9 point lead vs Iowa late at home which would have sealed them in and the proceeding to lose to a terrible Northwestern team which stuck out as a sore thumb. If people would be objective...did this look like a NCAA team at the end of the year....getting blown out and embarrassed by OSU and not having pulses when they played them and Maryland earlier.

also the idea of race if its true is quite disturbing..if it is true, the committee should not be discussing races of coaches or players for that matter

 

[Drayon10]

the bottom line is this team had every opportunity to correct its horrible finish and failed....they blew like a 7-9 point lead vs Iowa late at home which would have sealed them in and the proceeding to lose to a terrible Northwestern team which stuck out as a sore thumb. If people would be objective...did this look like a NCAA team at the end of the year....getting blown out and embarrassed by OSU and not having pulses when they played them and Maryland earlier.

also the idea of race if its true is quite disturbing..if it is true, the committee should not be discussing races of coaches or players for that matter

BAC I completely agree with you, we had plenty of opportunities. I always said loosing the Penn State game knocked the life out of us. We never played the same since loosing that game, its like it took our confidence away.

I will truly miss Tyler Scaife and I believe she is the last of the GREAT guards to come out of our program.

On to next season... looking forward t Arela and Zippy joining our team.

 

[BeKnighted]

If people would be objective...did this look like a NCAA team at the end of the year....getting blown out and embarrassed by OSU and not having pulses when they played them and Maryland earlier.

Based on what I saw when I did the in/out analysis, and from the deeper dive I did on Oklahoma after the bracket was announced, I guess what I would say is that there were several teams that got into the tournament that looked worse. Oklahoma's good conference record was built mostly on beating bad teams, and the Sooners lost in the first round of the B12 tourney; other teams that were in the last four in generally had worse resumes than RU in the areas the committee said were important.

One thing I'd add is that I had understood that the committee had said it would stop giving more emphasis to the end of the season, but this story suggests that, in fact, the end of the season was decisive. Personally, I thought it was a little odd to take that off the list - you're trying to pick the best at-large teams today, and lots of things can change from beginning to end of a season - but if you say you're not going to consider something, you shouldn't consider it.

 

[ea_1]

... I always said loosing the Penn State game knocked the life out of us. We never played the same since loosing that game, its like it took our confidence away.

Posted earlier on a different thread, but I think the turning point was the Nebraska game. The Penn State game was not a season-breaker by any means. Recall the bizarre finish. RU scored their points. The Nebraska game was the first home loss and had very poor point production. I think that is the game that really put the team on a downward spiral. Granted, it followed the PSU loss, but not really being in the game at home likely damaged team confidence for the ensuing road trip. Two more losses happened, and the wheels had fallen off the wagon.