NCAA Snubs Virginia Tech

Virginia Tech was on the bubble coming into today's NCAA selection show, despite showing that they have the talent and teamwork to beat any team in the country. Yet come NCAA time for the selection commitee to select who gets in, they get left out. The RPI, which the NCAA commitee uses as part of its judgement for who gets in, shows that the ACC as the best conference, yet the number 4 team doesn't get in? Incredible. Tech posted a 9-7 conference record, which was good enough to get them a first round bye. Yes, they are lacking a good record against the top 50, but they definitely deserved to be in the tournament. They are a better team than Baylor (who lost its first game against Big 12 #12 Colorade in the tournament), Kentucky, Oregon, South Alabama and Villanova. They had the 36th best strength of scedule in the country, and once again (the same way that it happened it football, where Tech was #1 in the computers) the NCAA has decided that it is better to play bad teams and win then go down to the wire with good teams. Maybe the only reason that Virginia Tech didn't make the tournament was that Georgia won the SEC title and took away their slot, but it shouldn't have mattered. Virginia Tech was easily one of the 31 best at-large teams, yet they didn't get into the tournament. Why? Because the head of the tourney commitee came out and said something to the extent of "[We don't look at how good your conference is]." Why, because there are problems with the selection committee. 1) The ACC has no representatives, while the Big East, SEC and Pac-10 do (see Villanova, Kentucky and Oregon). 2) Although the power conferences dominate college basketball, there are 6 members who come from mid-majors (aka Garbage conferences) which easily explains why they got a generous 6 at large bids this year (including South Alabama). 3) The committee can't decide whether RPI should be used or not. 4) The RPI is flawed even if it is used. Its obvious that Virginia Tech got snubbed from the NCAA tournament just like they got snubbed from the BCS National Championship game. Now all I can do is hope that their basketball team doesn't come out dissapointed and play a not great game because they are less than excited from getting screwed by the NCAA.