There Are No More Mid-Majors

There were several levels of madness on Sunday’s NCAA Tournament Selection Show. There was the fact that the bracket announcement dragged on longer than the final 45 minutes of the movie Titanic.

There was the absurd comedy of Charles Barkley mashing a touchscreen and failing miserably.

Charles Barkley with a touchscreen is your uncle trying a tablet for the first time pic.twitter.com/Q6pRbNLOho

— The Cauldron (@TheCauldron) March 13, 2016

There was the fact that Turner Sports continues to shoehorn Barkley and Kenny Smith into the NCAA Tournament. I like Kenny and Charles, and think that they produce amusing, fun television on Inside the NBA. But that’s their lane; that’s where they are supposed to be experts. They don’t follow enough college basketball (or couldn’t possibly) know enough about college basketball because of their regular gig. Turner/CBS should just use CBB folks for the tournament studio coverage.

And who can forget the bracket leaking on Twitter. That person, well, as someone else tweeted on Sunday:

So there was a lot to mock and snark on. However, one of the major storylines that came out of the selection show is not something to laugh at.

It was the declaration by the selection committee that the gulf between the haves and have nots continues to grow.

Le “mid major” is dead. Vive le power school.

No, seriously. The term “mid major”, long a phrase devoid of any actual meaning, now can be retired. You’re either from a single bid league or from a major conference—with very limited exceptions.

Obviously, there is going to be consternation when human beings with overt and covert objectives are involved in the selection of anything. I don’t think anyone went into the process with explicit malice aforethought or contempt towards schools from what now should be explicitly termed single bid leagues.

But when a school like Monmouth does what is asked of the committee by: 1) going on the road and playing a lot of people (they played one (!) non-conference home game); 2)winning eight of those eleven non-conference games; 3) winning the regular season title before losing in the conference title game by one basket to a team they were playing for the third time…and to essentially be told, “Well, you had three road losses that we consider to be ‘bad’, so, you know, good job, good effort. Have fun in the NIT and maybe y’all can get a trip to New York City….”

It’s disheartening, to say the least.

Or to be St. Bonaventure’s and see the teams that you were tied with for the best record in your conference be admitted to the tournament while you stay home has to be infuriating as well while lesser teams from bigger leagues get in has to be maddening. (The Atlantic-10 is one of those leagues that might be considered an exception at this point as a true mid-major, but there is no question the St. Bonaventure snub points to where they are viewed in the pecking order.)

We are often told that the committee doesn’t take certain things into consideration when building the bracket, and those media members who go through the bracket building exercise sponsored by the NCAA are quick to say that is true.

What the media cannot know, though, is the knowledge, baggage, and biases that the members of the committee bring into the process.

Again, I don’t think that it is active malice; that can’t necessarily be the case.

But as Andy Glockner points out, parts of the process are flawed, like the reliance/overreliance on bad and outdated metrics (the RPI) and the misunderstanding of how hard it is to win on the road.

I don’t really know how to fix it; it is always going to be an imperfect process.

At least things were made clear on Sunday: No matter what the committee claims is possible, for most of the member schools of Division 1, at least now they know where they stand.

Win your conference tournament or get ready for the NIT.