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March Madness, Baby! It’s Awesome with a Capital A!

Today is Selection Sunday. Conference tournaments have, for the most part, finished (the ACC, Atlantic 10, SEC and Big Ten have their championship games on Sunday afternoon). Everything is rounding into place for the NCAA tourney, which will start next week. The 65-team tournament is always one of the most exciting sporting events every year. The first weekend of basketball is full of upsets, Cinderellas and buzzer beaters. However, the tournament has actually already begun. The beauty of the NCAA basketball championship is that nearly every Division 1 team can earn a bid in the first weeks of March. Conference tournaments are held around the nation, and the NCAA awards the winner an automatic bid to the “big dance.” This means 30 separate tournaments with over 300 teams. Only the Ivy League awards its automatic bid to the regular-season champion, so they do not have a conference tournament.

Then, there are the 34 “at-large” bids handed out to the top teams which could not win an automatic bid. The selection committee has the difficult task of deciding which teams are worthy of an invitation. The media and the public follow this with non-stop speculation and predictions about the seeding and the notorious “bubble.” While I will discuss this so-called “bracketology,” I want to give the conference tournaments their proper due.

Briefly let me discuss some “bracketology” that is still up in the air. Your #1 seeds will be Kansas, Kentucky, Syracuse and one other team. The fourth #1 team will be Duke if they win their ACC final against Georgia Tech on Sunday. If Duke loses, it’s a toss-up between Ohio State (assuming they beat Minnesota in the Big Ten final) and West Virginia, who won the Big East Tournament by defeating Georgetown last night.

For the last teams in/out, Illinois has proven to me that they deserve to be in, especially with their win over Wisconsin and their heart-crushing double overtime defeat to Ohio State. Minnesota has likewise shown me that they deserve another weekend of basketball, with impressive wins over Michigan State and Purdue in the Big Ten Tournament. They can also put all those doubts aside if they defeat Ohio State for the automatic bid. Georgia Tech is definitely in after making a surprising run to the ACC final defeating North Carolina, Maryland and North Carolina State. The Yellow Jackets can likewise earn an automatic bid by beating Duke in the ACC Tournament final on Sunday. Another team that can earn their way in would be Mississippi State, who plays Kentucky in the SEC Tournament final on Sunday as well. I expect the Bulldogs to make the tournament regardless of the outcome of that game, but another automatic bid lies in the balance. Many expect Virginia Tech to get a bid, but I think their loss to last-place Miami in the first round of the ACC tournament puts them on the outside looking in. Joining the Hokies just barely on the wrong side of that “bubble” will probably be Seton Hall, USF, UAB, Memphis, Rhode Island, Florida, Mississippi, Dayton, Cincinnati, Arizona State and Wichita State.

Rumors have floated around that the NCAA wants to expand the tournament to 96 teams. Though this is primarily a cash-grab, some have justified the change as giving more teams an opportunity to shine on the big stage. Mid-major teams generally receive very few at-large bids, so more overall bids may give them a better shot. Though this is potentially true, there is the possibility that the extra bids will still go to “power” conference schools with middling records. The main oversight of this argument is that all of these teams have the opportunity to earn a bid through their conference tournament. I will give you several examples of this phenomenon from this year.

Wichita State finished their season at 25-9 overall, 12-6 in conference play. The Shockers are a quality mid-major program, but clearly on the bubble this year. Finishing 2nd in the Missouri Valley Conference, many argue Wichita State should earn an at-large bid. The truth of the matter is that the NCAA tournament started a couple weeks earlier for Wichita State. Win your conference tournament, and there is no question about whether you get in or not. Wichita State lost to Northern Iowa by 15 in the finals of the MVC championship. Now take San Diego State, who finished 25-8 and 4th place in the Mountain West Conference at 11-5 in league play. They, too, were firmly on the bubble. However, all doubts were erased as the Aztecs defeated the Colorado State Rams, the #8-ranked New Mexico Lobos, and the UNLV Runnin’ Rebels on three successive days to win the MWC tournament and earn an automatic bid. No waiting on Selection Sunday needed for the Aztecs.

The fact is: win and you’re in. Wichita State didn’t. San Diego State did. I love conference tournaments because they are essentially extensions of the NCAA tournament. For many smaller schools, conference tournaments are the only shot at making the big dance. On Saturday, Morgan State played South Carolina State in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference Tournament final. You’ve probably never heard of either of these schools. The Morgan State Bears had finished 15-1 in conference play, finishing 1st in the MEAC. But a regular season championship means nothing if you don’t earn your automatic bid to the NCAAs. Morgan State prevailed 68-61, earning their second straight NCAA bid. Later that day, the Ohio Bobcats faced the Akron Zips in the Mid-American Conference championship. The Ohio Bobcats had finished 7-9 in conference play, giving them the #9 seed for the MAC tournament. On their way to the final, Ohio upset #1 seed Kent State, as well as #4 seed Miami (OH). The Bobcats finished their improbable run with a victory over the #2 seed Akron Zips, winning in overtime by the score of 81-75, punching their ticket to the big dance on the way.

Great stories and games from these smaller conferences are everywhere. In the Big Sky Conference, the Montana Grizzlies defeated the Weber State Wildcats, 66-65. That may not seems noteworthy until you learn that Montana was down by 20 points at halftime. Anthony Johnson, a senior guard on Montana, scored 34 of his total 42 points in the second half, as the Grizzlies overcame a 22-point deficit to pull out the one-point victory, upsetting the favored Wildcats. In the Southern Conference, we turn our attention to Wofford College. This school of about 1500 students qualified for its first ever NCAA tournament. This is even more impressive with the fact that the school has only been in Division I since 1995. The Terriers from Spartansburg, SC, had their first winning season ever in Division I basketball last year, finishing 16-14. Only a year later, the Wofford Terriers are champions, and now they have their eyes set on the NCAA tourney.

This is what I love about college basketball. Small schools get the chance to play with the big boys, if only for one day. Anybody can come out of nowhere to win their conference tournament and get that automatic bid. Anything can happen.