Many know about the Lunatic’s feelings around allowing more mid-major teams (especially regular season champions) into the NCAA tournament.  But the reality is the cards are so stacked against them.   This year, the NIT was wonderful enough to prove my point.

For those who noticed, the NIT semi-finalists were George Washington, Valparaiso, San Diego St and BYU.   Which made me wonder about some things.

Home court advantage is everything in college basketball.    In the NIT, the mid-major schools got some rare chances to play the game at their home court thanks to seedings.   In those games, the mid-majors went 7 for 8 against teams from the top 6, and the only one that lost was North Florida – a mid-major that would not have received a home game if it wasn’t for Florida having planned renovations on their arena.

In the regular season, there were 380 games where mid-major teams played the top 6 conference teams.    237 of those games were true road games – which the mid-majors only won 21 of them.   91 games were on a neutral court thanks to early season tournaments, where the mid-majors won 27 times.   Only 54 times did the mid-major team get a chance at home – which they won 21 times.

You might look at that and realize that the home winning percentage doesn’t match.   Well, lets remember this doesn’t look at anything around handicapping for ranking.   All it points out is that there are 277 teams in mid-major conferences, and in the regular season, they only get 380 chances to prove themselves against the top conferences – and when they do get that chance, it is typically on the road.

Lets look back at the 5 teams that won home games in the NIT.

• George Washington was the outlier – somehow getting 4 home games (against Virginia, Seton Hall, Penn St and Rutgers).  They won all 4 of those games.
• BYU only got Utah and Colorado to schedule them in true road games – they lost to both those tourney teams by single digits on the road
• Valparaiso only got Oregon and Oregon St to schedule them – also in true road games.  They only lost by 6 to #1 seed Oregon, and then beat Oregon St.
• St. Mary’s received a chance to play at home against Stanford – wich they won by 17.  Then they lost their other chance on the road to California by only 4 points
• San Diego St got 4 games – partially thanks to a tournament.  They lost their home game against #1 Kansas (there are not a lot of teams who were able to beat Kansas).  They lost by 5 to Utah on the road.  And they were able to beat California before losing to West Virginia in their tournament neutral site games.

So, these teams could only get 16 games in the regular season – and thanks to George Washington being an outlier, 6 of them were at home.  The mid-majors won 5 of them.  But they could only win 1 of the 7 true road games (which is typically more likely what a mid-major will get).  On a neutral court, they went 2 for 3.

Basically, the NIT allowed these 5 teams to get 1 more home game than the entire regular season against the top 6 conferences – simply because they were forced to play.  And almost every time they got the chance to play at home, they took advantage of that chance and won (which likely makes it even more unlikely for them to get another chance in future years).

I constantly hear the comment that a mid-major champion that is like Valparaiso that went 26-6 in the regular season wouldn’t be able to survive in a major conference.   Well, in two road games, they split against Oregon and Oregon St, and then they beat Florida State at home in the NIT.   To put into perspective, 8 Pac 12 teams played both Oregon and Oregon St on the road.  Only Stanford and UCLA were able to get a split (both by also beating Oregon St).  Tournament teams California, Colorado, USC, and Utah all failed to get one road victory against those two schools (both Washington schools also failed).   So, tell me, Valparaiso was able to get a split that 2 of 8 Pac 12 teams did not get, and they also were able to beat Florida State at home.  Tell me why again that I should not believe if I gave Valparaiso 9 home games in an 18 game conference season, that I should not expect the Crusaders to go 10-8.  They went 1-1 on the road against tournament teams, why should I not expect them to protect their home court and win a couple more road games.

While I know it is unlikely to happen, I hope the Selection Committee looks at the numbers and starts to realize that if you are a small conference team, you get only a few chances to prove yourself against a big conference team.   So, when you then go 26-6 for the season, if you have a victory against a top 50 RPI team from a big 6 conference, that should tell you this team can play and probably should be in the field.  It is unfair to say that they should schedule more, the major conferences are not likely going to take the bait of playing one of these top teams – it too often ends in a loss that you are not supposed to lose.   When choosing between a team that got 18 chances to win these games, and couldn’t win enough to make them comfortable locks in the field – and a team that won almost everything in their conference and have a top 50 RPI, lets give the mid-major the chance they can’t get.    It won’t happen, but this year’s NIT is great evidence that it should.