Is it this weekend?  Thanks for the heads up.

Well for those of you who thought the weak non con schedule would cost us, looks like we were left off the NIT in favor of three teams we beat in the regular season

Long Suffering Fan wrote:

No Mason   Wonder if they declined.

If you’re looking on a phone the picture might’ve cut off but they’re in there. Hosting Samford.

GW is the only A10 team .500 or better in conference play to not make postseason so far.

So I didn’t think we had much chance at an NIT bid, but now I have a real gripe (not that we necessarily have the biggest gripe of omitted teams).

San Jose St not only got a bid, but a home game as a 4 seed. They went 13-19, finished 8th in the mountain west, and have a KenPom of 165 and a Net of 175.

So we are basically better than them in every metric, but apparently everything has been corrupted by the bigger football leagues so their teams can even get into the NIT with laughable metrics and records.


Edit: UC Riverside also got in with much worse metrics than ours (net and KP in the 140s) so maybe it’s not about football money but just some west coast bias ensuring there are teams from the west even they are totally undeserving.

Last edited by Free Quebec (3/16/2025 10:15 pm)

We clearly deserved the NIT more than Bonaventure did; you can add them to the list others have mentioned that were selected.

1-12 North Carolina vs Quad 1, the most corrupt bid ever granted in a very corrupt sport

= have a Quad 3 loss, and went 1-12 vs Quad 1 

Its not like their Quad 2 wins were all that impressive either, again not a single win over a Tourney team in Quad 2.  

13 cracks at Quad 1 and they have a 2 point win over UCLA to show for it



 

AT Hiker wrote:

We clearly deserved the NIT more than Bonaventure did; you can add them to the list others have mentioned that were selected.

Unfortunately the Bonnies’ computer ratings were better than ours, basically because they did better out of conference (and partly because of our weak schedule and partly because it took us half the season to really click once we tailored the offense to Castro). 

But if that “KNIT” score weighed heavily, then San Jose St still makes no sense because they are far below us and others.

It did not come to fruition, but had Mason won yesterday and VCU not received an at large, I may have boycotted the Dance altogether.  Nevertheless, this system is getting worse and worse on non-majors which is exactly how the NCAA wants it.  They must feel like we'll still have our upsets when #13 seed automatic qualifiers knock off bloated #4 seeds without having to extend invitations to mid-majors who don't win their conference tournament.  

This is especially hard on the A10 who plays their title game on Sunday.  The committee can talk about their contingency brackets but I guarantee this does not factor the A10.  If Mason had won, they would be the 11 seed rather than a more deserved 12 or 13, and VCU would have been out.  So again, had VCU lost, they would have been 26-7, 2-1 in Q1 games, 8-6 in Q1 and 2 games, while UNC is 22-13, 1-12 in Q1 games, and 9-12 in Q1 and Q2 games.  Texas is 19-15, 7-10 in Q1 and 10-15 in Q1 and Q2.  Vandy is 20-12, 5-9 in Q1 and 9-12 in Q1 and Q2.  By the way, George Mason which was not at all considered for an at large, finished 25-8, 1-4 in Q1, and 5-4 in Q1 and Q2.

Let's start with the obvious, A10 schools play far fewer Q1 games.  The better schools can't get enough of these high quality OOC games (The John Cheyney scheduling days are over) and without these games, the vast majority of schools will never qualify as a Q1 opponent for other A10 schools to play.  This is why the committee should be looking at Q1 and Q2 games as a basis for comparison between majors and midmajors out of fairness, except it has no interest in being fair.  

And perhaps equally if not more obvious: at some point, having all of these Q1 games on your schedule can't be enough in and of itself.  You have to win some of these games and UNC in particular has shown no real ability to do this.  By all accounts, UNC has underachieved this season while a school like George Mason has vastly overachieved.  Again, UNC is 9-12 in Q1 and Q2, Mason is 5-4 in such games. (Yes, I realize that UNC was unbeaten in Q2 games).  That said, UNC is a national brand.  So is Texas.  More eyeballs, more fans in the stands, higher tv ratings, more ad revenue than George Mason could hope to muster.  (Of note, when Mason made it's unlikely run to the Final 4, their national semifinal loss to Florida was one of the lowest rated final 4 games on record.)

To suggest the answer is to fire Bernadette is absurd.  What is she supposed to do about this?  Sure, an A10-Mountain West or AAC challenge sounds nice but the results would not do a thing to solve this dilemma.  The big boys had seen enough of schools like Mason, Davidson, VCU, Butler and Loyola crashing the party.  Now, it's been made tougher for this to ever happen again.  

You stay classy West Virginia.

I'm with you to a point.  Some team gets screwed every year.  Mentioning the absence of Tucker DeVries as a reason for excluding WVU, after he missed 75% of the team's games this year (where they still managed records of 19-13, 10-10), was ridiculous.  Watching a team in Baylor who had the same conference record as you "earn" a 9 seed is laughable.  

I will now draw the line on corruption due to UNC's AD being the chair of the committee.  (The optics may look bad but there's absolutely no proof of any favoritism or wrongdoing).  And, I'll certainly draw the line on opening up a political investigation (though I look forward to the forthcoming Netflix show based on this premise.  Simply put, the governor of West Virginia must have more important matters to occupy his time with than this.

I alluded to this next point elsewhere but I'll expound a bit here.  I can't stand how lazy the selection committee has become with respect to factoring in the game results played on selection Sunday.  It was mentioned that they had 5 contingency brackets; well, please make these public.  I'm more than curious to know what these contingencies were and who was or may have been impacted.  Because here is what I do know:

1) A big sigh of relief was let out after VCU's win.  Am very convinced that a Mason victory would have resulted in the Patriots getting VCU's 11 seed and VCU missing the dance altogether.  In reality, VCU's win should have resulted in their ending up on the 8/9 line, and a Mason win would have rightfully put GM as a 12 or 13.

2) Did you know that Michigan beat Wisconsin to win the Big 10 championship game?  Or, that Michigan finished higher in the Big 10 regular season standings than Wisconsin?  Or, that Michigan also won their sole head-to-head regular season matchup which happened to be played in Madison?  OK, if you knew all of these things, please explain why the Badgers stayed on the 3 line while Michigan did not move off of the 5?  Plain and simple...you can't.

3) The rest of Sunday's action was relatively easy.  Florida's win over Tenn. gave them the 1 and the other the 2.  Might have stayed that way, or it may have reversed had the Vols won.  An easy fix either way.  The Ivy winner was getting a 13 seed and the loser would not be dancing.  Only the AAC had to have a built-in contingency since Memphis had to make the field even with a loss.  I'll acknowledge that this had to be one of the 5 contingency brackets.

I'll end by reiterating that VCU would not have made the field with a loss on Sunday.  Perhaps it will take something this egregious to make some changes though because it's the A10, the greater likelihood is that the NCAA will not truly be bothered if something like this was to ever happen.  Shameful.

moneybox wrote:

We got a shitty matchup against a very good Boise State team in the first round of the CBC tournament. Hell a third of the teams did not even have a winning record and that's the matchup we get. I guess it's nice to say you were in a post-season tournament, but that'a about all.

Boise St is very good, but maybe not the worst matchup.  They don’t block shots - and we’ve struggled with shot blockers - and they turn it over.  They also like to run teams off the three point line, which is fine with us. 

Where we could be in trouble is on the boards. They are very big 2-5 (everyone 6’7” or 6’8”) and rebound really well.