Many of you probably know by now that I am not a big fan of the bracketologists.\u00a0 To be fair – it is hypocritical.\u00a0 I love reading them – so I am sucked in just like everyone else who follows college basketball.\u00a0 But then they make my skin crawl when I read some of it.<\/p>\n
ESPN and Joe Lunardi have pushed my buttons today – maybe simply because I have watched them change their last 4\u00a0teams throughout the day.\u00a0 I think the part that bothers me is when he complains about criticism, he will mention things like individual games don’t happen in a vacuum – your favorite team might have won but another team’s win might have been more impressive and changed the rankings.\u00a0 Fair enough – but what he has done today makes me believe he isn’t very consistent.<\/p>\n
Lets look at the last day of updates:<\/p>\n
Going into today, his rankings are: Wichita St, Villanova, Iowa St, La Salle, Temple, Virginia, Boise St, and Tennessee are in – Ole Miss, Alabama, Southern Miss, Baylor, Arizona St, Kentucky, Providence and Iowa are out.<\/span><\/p>\n In early games, Kentucky wins against Florida – while Providence loses at UConn.\u00a0 So, Lunardi puts an\u00a0update.<\/p>\n 3 pm IN: Wichita St, Villanova, Iowa St, La Salle, Temple, Virginia, Kentucky, Boise St – while OUT: Tennessee, Ole Miss, Alabama, Southern Miss, Baylor, Arizona St, Maryland, Iowa are out.<\/span><\/p>\n So, can appreciate that the Kentucky victory might be large enough to get the Wildcats in.\u00a0 Also makes sense Providence dropping out of the picture – but a little odd that Maryland – who is not playing today now has jumped in ahead of Iowa.<\/p>\n Now, for the next wave of games.\u00a0 Wichita St, Iowa St, Boise St, Tennessee, Ole Miss, Alabama, and Iowa all win.\u00a0 Two had victories against teams projected in the field (Boise St beat San Diego St and Tennessee beat Missouri).\u00a0 La Salle gets blown out by 24\u00a0at St. Louis, and Arizona St gets blown out by 15 at\u00a0Arizona.\u00a0 Both St. Louis and Arizona are ranked teams playing at home – but those are still pretty big losses.\u00a0 This leads into the next update:<\/p>\n 7 pm IN: Wichita St, Iowa St, Villanova, Temple, Kentucky, Boise St, La Salle, Tennessee – OUT: Virginia, Ole Miss, Alabama, Southern Miss, Baylor, Arizona St, Iowa, Maryland.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Wait a second – what just happened.\u00a0 Tennessee jumps into the tournament for their big victory.\u00a0 Fine.\u00a0 Can understand that it isn’t Boise St who drops out since they had a big victory also.\u00a0 But at 3 pm, Kentucky’s jump for their victory put them behind Virginia – who doesn’t play today.\u00a0 Yet, it is Virginia that has fallen out of the tournament.\u00a0 Maybe he is reconsidering because he doesn’t like the idea of bringing Kentucky in and then putting them back out.\u00a0 But it is still rather curious that the team to take the fall is Virginia.\u00a0\u00a0 Why wouldn’t it be La Salle – the team that just lost by 24 points.\u00a0\u00a0 Lets not even mention the fact that Iowa\u00a0and Maryland are still behind the Arizona State team that also just lost big.<\/p>\n There is also a curious part about Wichita State – they had just won by 15 points to make their conference championship game.\u00a0 Meanwhile, three teams just a few spots above the Shockers the day before (Minnesota, Oklahoma and Colorado) all lost to teams with losing records.\u00a0 Apparently, Lunardi also feels it is not necessary to look at the middle of the rankings – we will just leave Wichita St on the bubble.<\/p>\n Finally, Baylor upsets Kansas and Southern Miss beats UCF.\u00a0 This leads to next update.<\/p>\n 10 pm IN: Iowa St, Colorado, Villanova, Temple, Kentucky, Boise St, La Salle, Tennessee – OUT: Virginia, Baylor, Ole Miss, Southern Miss, Alabama, Iowa, Maryland, Arizona St.<\/span><\/p>\n Lunardi finally gives credit to Wichita St and moves them off the bubble.\u00a0 He also moves up Baylor and Southern Miss for their victory – and moves up Iowa and Maryland over Arizona St.\u00a0\u00a0 At least he is finally catching up – but to be fair, Wichita St, Colorado, Iowa, Maryland, and Arizona St all finished their games (or didn’t play) before the 7 pm update.\u00a0 Nothing happened between 7 pm and 10 pm that should have changed the rankings for those teams (other than movement from teams that did play during that time).<\/p>\n It tells me one of three things is happening:<\/p>\n OK – that was mean – of course, the whole thing is about creating hype – whether he is inconsistent or not.\u00a0 But here’s my problem.\u00a0 You can’t tell me that these things don’t influence the committee.\u00a0 They know they can go to the ESPN or CBS site and the guy who is following the games and creating real time ratings believes Team A should be out.\u00a0 While I like to believe the committee at the end of the day does what they want, it is hard not to believe that the media doesn’t somewhat influence opinions – and that is tremendously unfair to Team A if the only thing they have done wrong that day is not play a game.<\/p>\n I agree with Lunardi that things don’t happen in a vacuum.\u00a0 Teams can win and lose games and find themselves in an unexpectedly different place in the rankings because others have won or lost.\u00a0 But at the end of the day, if I believed Virginia was better than Kentucky at Time A – and neither team played by Time B, there is no reason that these teams should switch places.\u00a0 Other teams that have won or loss – sure.\u00a0 But once I have made a choice that a team is better, I need one of them to play before I can move them compared to each other.<\/p>\n To be fair, Virginia is just an example.\u00a0 I personally don’t have an opinion yet on whether the big victories the Cavaliers have had make up for the crazy bad losses they have.\u00a0 They are one of the most difficult decisions that the committee has – especially if they don’t do something special over the last week.\u00a0 But the point is that tomorrow, that team inconsistently moved could be Boise St or Villanova or Kentucky – and all of that can influence opinions – potentially unfairly.<\/p>\n OK – that’s enough of my rant.\u00a0 Just figured I should get my bracketology rant out of the way during the weekend.\u00a0 Now, I can go back to enjoying the games (San Diego is trying to upset St. Mary’s in the WCC tournament…..)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Many of you probably know by now that I am not a big fan of the bracketologists.\u00a0 To be fair – it is hypocritical.\u00a0 I love reading them – so I am sucked in just like everyone else who follows college basketball.\u00a0 But then they make my skin crawl when I read some of it. 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