The Big Guys' Bubble vs The Little Guys' Bubble

One bad game. That's all it takes for a regular season champion of a small league to see an entire season of work go up in smoke. It may have happened Monday night to Oral Roberts and Drexel, and it may have happened over the weekend to Iona. Those teams from traditional one-bid leagues really need to wow the selection committee to be considered for at-large bids, and I'm not sure any of them have done quite enough.

I know their fans want them to get another shot, that they get tired of seeing eight more teams from the Big East or Big Ten get in while their leagues only get one. That's why we have things like the RPI to see if the dominant teams in the small leagues measure up to the underachievers in the big leagues. While those numbers never do tell the full story, it is unfortunately all we really have to go on.

I'd like to think that ten teams from one conference is too many. As these leagues get bigger and bigger, though, maybe it's not. Even so, if a team is tenth in its own league, is it really worthy of a national title shot? Isn't that the point of letting all of these little teams in: to find out if one of them truly is special and could play with the big boys?

It's tough to tell when we get down to those last five or six teams in the field. All we can do is go by the numbers. As tired as this game may be, let's go to the blind resumes! Who do you like?

Eight of the twelve are in the field according to Joe Lunardi, and seven are in according to Jerry Palm. Which four or five would you leave out? Answers coming up in a bit.

What impresses you from the above? Do you like Teams A and B? They played impossible schedules, took some lumps but did manage to get a few quality wins.

Teams C and D also played tough schedules, but have repeatedly come up short against top-notch competition. Do they get rewarded for the tough schedules or punished for the lack of big wins?

Teams E, G, K and L  piled up a lot of wins against mediocre competition but combine for two wins against the RPI top 50. Do all of those wins give them a pass on their weak schedules, or should they be punished for never playing or beating anyone? The players can't control who they play. They can only beat the teams on their schedule, but other teams played and beat better teams.

Okay, answer time. Who did you have in and out?
A - Colorado State
B - Connecticut
C - South Florida
D - Northwestern
E - Iona
F - Texas
G - Oral Roberts
H - Xavier
I - Seton Hall
J - Washington
K - Middle Tennessee
L - Drexel

My opinion: teams with an RPI in the 30's or better with some quality wins like UConn and Colorado State need to be in. The dilemma for me is choosing between teams that never played or beat anyone great (Drexel, Middle Tennessee) and teams that had their shots at the top teams but lost almost every time (South Florida, Northwestern). I think some of the little guys like Iona should be in over the big schools that had their shots and failed over and over.

Obviously, some of these teams are going to be left out. Maybe it would be right to trim a few teams out of the huge conferences and let a few small teams in. It's a shame that teams like Oral Roberts and Drexel can have one bad loss ruin an otherwise great season while teams like Connecticut and Texas only need one good win to make up for a season of mediocrity.

Honestly, I think smaller leagues should do away with conference tournaments and give their bids to the regular season champion like the Ivy League does. The idea of having a conference tournament to allow other teams to steal a bid really only benefits the bigger conferences. It punishes the champions and devalues the regular season in smaller leagues.

All the little guys can do right now is hope the other bubble teams have bad first-round conference tournament losses, the kind of ugly losses that make the committee say, "Forget these guys. They've had their shot. Let's look elsewhere."

The committee has shown some more love to mid-major conferences lately. UAB and VCU surprisingly got in last year, and VCU made a historic run to the Final Four. Their run came just five years after fellow CAA team George Mason surprisingly got in and also made a Final Four run.

Letting small teams in can be fun, but let's not forget one big problem with limiting the number of bids to the big conferences: they have a lot of good teams, many of which would probably coast to a Summit League or MAAC championship. Do you remember who finished ninth in the Big East last season?