Thursday, March 10, 2011
Posted: 1:28 p.m.
By Reuben Frank
CSNPhilly.com
The one danger ESPN bracketologist Joe Lunardi sees for Villanova is that when the NCAA tournament selection committee convenes this weekend, theyre just going to determine that no matter how deserving the Big East is, no matter how deep the Big East is, no conference deserves to have 11 teams in the field of 68.
And if they do determine that?
Bad news for the Wildcats.
Might there just be some, We just cant possibly do this feeling in the committee room? Yeah, I guess, Lunardi said in a conference call. And if any of them are going to miss, its going to be Villanova. But in terms of team-by-team comparisons, it really isnt close. The facts are the facts and the records are the records and the numbers are the numbers and 11 of their teams are among the top 37, period.
So Lunardi does think the Wildcats will be miserable Monday morning -- but not because theyre headed for the NIT.
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I think theyre going to be miserable because theyre playing badly, he said. I dont think theyre going to be miserable because they missed the NCAA tournament.
"The way this college basketball season has gone, without a ton of at-large mid-major teams deserving of NCAA consideration, the Big East is expected to get a record 11 bids, which means Villanova should find itself in the tournament for a seventh consecutive year despite winning just five of its last 15 games, Lunardi said.
The perfect storm for the Big East has been in place since early to mid-January, and all of the things that would have needed to happen to keep it in place have occurred, he said.
Villanova, 21-11 but 5-10 since mid-January, was ranked No. 6 in the AP preseason poll and as high as No. 7 as recently as late January. But the Wildcats dropped out of the rankings entirely after losing to Pitt last weekend -- and that was before a Big East first-round exit Tuesday at the hands of a South Florida team that had lost 17 of its previous 20 games.
Nonetheless, Lunardi believes Novas resume is strong enough for an at-large bid. He said a recent change in the selection procedure, in which a teams last 10 or 12 games arent given extra weight, will certainly help the Wildcats.
This is certainly a bit of unprecedented set of circumstances, with a team losing so many games in a row and so many games overall, but in this stretch of 15 games in which theyve gone 5-10, theyve played 10 teams in the tournament and theyre 3-7 in those 10 games, which obviously isnt great, but its still better than some other teams that are going to make the field, Lunardi said.
So were really comparing Villanova not to the history of teams with losing streaks heading into selection Sunday but to the other teams that have had very uneven seasons competing for spots in this years tournament, whether thats Tennessee or thats Michigan State. I think theyre a lot like them, with actually some better wins along the way.
Overall, theyve beaten eight teams -- eight different teams -- that are in the field, and Id be hard pressed to find anybody in any season that has done that and missed, so my nickel is that Villanova will make it as a double-digit seed and then run their losing seed to six games.
Since beating Syracuse at the Carrier Dome on Jan. 22, when the Orange were ranked No. 3, Villanova is 1-6 against ranked teams, with the only win coming over West Virginia in early February.
But the way the committee examines teams now, wins over ranked teams early in the year -- Cincinnati, Temple, Louisville, Syracuse -- are just as important as if they happened at the end of the year.
Officially, they eliminated the last-10, last-12 category, the record in the last 10 or 12 games as an official data point on the team selection sheets that the committee reviews, with the logic being schedules could be not apples-to-apples, team-to-team, Lunardi said. Some teams might play tougher conference games very, very late ... so officially, its less of a factor.
From a common-sense standpoint, theres no way you could look at a Villanova ... at this point and say theyre playing as well in March as they were in December or January.
Lunardis most recent bracket has Villanova as a No. 11 seed, facing No. 6 seed Texas A&M out of the Big 12 in Tucson, Ariz.
He believes that if the committee penalizes Villanova, it will be by dropping them in the seedings, not by leaving them out entirely.
But I guess if Villanova gets left out entirely, we may have to reframe our thinking, he said.
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E-mail Reuben Frank at rfrank@comcastsportsnet.com