It happens every year – someone comments about how soft the bubble is.  Once again, I am sure they do it just to build conversation but it still rubs me the wrong way.  This weekend, the ESPN Bubble Watch writer finally broke out this horrible statement (I am actually shocked I had not seen it up to this point).  Eamonn Brennan brought out his typical soft bubble article – and as he said, Championship Week isn’t going to change that.

I hate when writers do this – because it diminishes the work that so many teams have done during the season.  Lets looks at some of the soft teams that are on the bubble.

There is Nebraska – who finished 4th in the Big Ten, including victories against Wisconsin, Michigan State, and Ohio State.

How about Xavier – who finished tied for 3rd in the Big East, and was able to knock off both Creighton and Cincinnati.

We could talk about Dayton – who went 10-6 in the Atlantic 10 while being able to beat Gonzaga, UMass, St. Louis and George Washington – all likely tournament teams.

The last team in according to ESPN is Arkansas – who swept Kentucky, and beat fellow bubble teams SMU and Minnesota.

Do I think any of these teams are going to win the entire tournament.  No – of course not.  Do you remember a double digit seed every winning the tournament, so I think it is unfair to blame these teams because they are likely going to fall like other bubble teams have done.  But they have not had bad seasons – they have been very strong teams, and have shown the capability on a given night to beat a top 4 seed.

But that brings me to the thing that really makes me upset about this.  Lets talk about Horizon regular season champion Green Bay.  During the non-conference season, the Phoenix had one of the more stunning upsets of the season when they beat eventual ACC regular season champion Virginia.  This was after almost beating Wisconsin earlier in the season.  These are teams that are figuring to be top 3 seeds – and they held their own with them.  So, what else did the Phoenix do.

Overall, Green Bay went 7-3 in the non-conference against Division 1 opponents, with a win over Tulsa (one of the co-champs of Conference USA) and respectable losses to Harvard (the Ivy champion) and Eastern Michigan (a MAC team with a winning record and top 100 RPI – although we know the RPI is a flawed number).  Then, Green Bay dominated the Horizon – going 14-2, only losing to Milwaukee (their main rival) and Valparaiso (in a game they played without their second leading scorer).   So, they would have been 21-4 if you don’t include the game their center was hurt.

Then, came the conference tournament, where they got upset by the same Milwaukee team that upset them in the regular season.  And now, unfortunately to most, you have a small conference team with an RPI of 60 and no chance of getting invited to the Big Dance.

Brennan is so sure of this, that he didn’t even include the Phoenix in his Bubble Watch – although surprisingly, he still has Louisiana Tech – another one of the Conference USA co-champs on the list.  Why is this surprising.

RPI: Green Bay (60)   Louisiana Tech (68)

Best Victory:  Green Bay (Virginia – RPI 12),  Louisiana Tech (Oklahoma – 22)

Non-conf SOS:   Green Bay (60), Louisiana Tech (288)

Overall SOS:  Green Bay (163), Louisiana Tech (248)

Bad Losses:   Louisiana Tech (2),  Green Bay (3)

So – of all the metrics that the committee harps on, Green Bay has the advantage over Louisiana Tech with the exception of Bad Losses.  And even that is debatable.  Unlike the 2 LT losses, 2 of Green Bay’s happened to the team that is going to be playing in the NCAA Tournament (Milwaukee) and 1 happened while they had a major injury.

But I digress – quite frankly, I believe both teams at least belong in the bubble discussion.  But that is the thing that makes me so mad about writers saying the bubble is soft.  Green Bay went 21-6, beat the ACC regular champ, lost by 3 to a team likely to be a protected seed, 3 of their other 5 losses are to teams who will also be dancing, and one of their losses happened without one of their best players.  And this writer who says the bubble is so soft doesn’t even put this team on the list.  They are not even good enough to be one of the weak teams being considered to get rolled over by a top seed in the tournament.  This is a complete travesty, and an unbelievable amount of disrespect to what was truly a fantastic season for Green Bay.

They did everything they were supposed to do except for win the final 2 games of the season that mattered – the games they needed to win in their conference tournament to get the Horizon’s bid.  The least that we can do if we are going to call the bubble soft is invite the Phoenix into the discussion – their resume deserves that.

I don’t know if Green Bay gets in.  History says that regular season champions of small conferences that have RPIs greater than 50 don’t have a great chance.  But if the committee decides to ignore history and ignore ESPN’s opinion, they will be picking a team that is very deserving of being invited to the dance and very capable of pulling the type of first round upset that is what makes the tournament so special.