The second part of our review of bubble teams in and out in the NCAA Tournament over the past 35 years focuses on 1990-94. The span included those spurned during arguably the greatest NCAA Tournament of all, a 25-4 Dick and Tony Bennett led Wisconsin-Green Bay team left out, and a committee point of emphasis develops favoring conference champions.
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Part 1: 1985-89
Introduction
1990
Last in: 9 UC Santa Barbara (20-8), 10 UAB (22-8), 10 Colorado State (21-8), 10 Notre Dame (16-12), 10 Texas (21-8), 11 Kansas State (17-14), 12 BYU (21-8), 12 Villanova (18-14), 13 Southern Mississippi (20-11)
Left out: DePaul (18-14), Hawaii (23-9), Long Beach State (22-8), Maryland (18-13), New Orleans (19-10), Penn State (21-8), Southern Illinois (26-7)
Multi-bid conferences: 13
It will forever be hard to top the quality of the 1990 NCAA Tournament, which to this day easily holds the record for most games decided by three points or less or in overtime (24, or four more than any year before or since). Perhaps not surprisingly, this was a year where there were more qualified candidates than spots, even if records of some of the last teams in might indicate otherwise.
Among late choices in the field, some quibbled with BYU and Southern Mississippi (Dick Vitale among them) while Notre Dame’s 16-12 record was middling and Kansas State’s 17-14 mark the same. BYU tied Colorado State for the WAC title, and both teams got in, reasonable for a top-10 conference even as the Cougars especially did not play a strong non-conference schedule. (CSU notched a splashy win over North Carolina in Denver to highlight an otherwise light non-league slate.) Southern Miss was the second team from a declining Metro Conference, and the Golden Eagles’ spot as the lowest-seeded at-large team seemed almost exclusively due to that, what with their only win against the NCAA tourney field being against Southland champion and 15 seed NE Louisiana (now Louisiana-Monroe). M.K. Turk’s team advanced to the Metro tourney final, losing a close game to future NCAA 4 seed Louisville; that helped Southern Miss sneak in just a couple weeks after it had lost to McNeese State.
Somehow, the committee needed to find room for Long Beach State. The 49ers were victimized by their conference playing its championship game during the time selections were announced, and the selection committee feeling the need to punish them significantly for it.
It’s hard to imagine nowadays with so many national television options, but at the time conferences were sometimes at the mercy of networks if they wanted their championship games televised. ESPN asked for the Big West Tournament final to be played at 6 p.m. Eastern, 3 p.m. Pacific on Selection Sunday, half an hour before the brackets were announced, and the league obliged, as other leagues had done before them.
Selection committees in the past had complained about leagues not having their games finished before the pairings were announced, and this time the committee took action against the Big West. The bracket revealed on CBS showed the No. 9 seed in the Southeast as either UC Santa Barbara or Long Beach State-the 49ers if they defeated third-ranked UNLV in the Big West tourney final going that moment, or the Gauchos if they didn’t. Selection committee chairman Jim Delany’s words on CBS were stinging: “The committee has been really concerned about the lateness of the (championship games). It is wreaking havoc with the selection and seeding process…(with Long Beach State and UCSB) the question was, if Long Beach State should upset UNLV, who should bear the burden. The committee felt that the Big West should bear that burden, if there indeed is a burden.”
Coach Joe Harrington got the news just before halftime of his game against the Runnin’ Rebels. Long Beach State trailed by just two at halftime, but UNLV showed the form it would display the next three weeks in winning the national championship and won 92-74.
The committee’s anger was reasonable, but its action misplaced in this case. The 49ers’ profile should’ve said easy selection, probably the 9 seed line they were either/or’d on; Long Beach defeated NCAA teams Purdue-the 2 seed in the Midwest Regional-and Texas in December and topped NCAA 6 seed New Mexico State twice in Big West play. The 49ers had an 11-8 record overall against the top 150 (a frequent measurement at the time), with seven of those losses to teams in the top 35, three to UNLV. Long Beach also was 9-4 in road/neutral games. UCSB also was a deserving pick with a win over UNLV and two over Long Beach State. In this case, the burden without question should’ve gone on another at-large team. By the way, one of the assistant coaches on that Long Beach State team? Seth Greenberg, who would take over as 49ers head coach the next year when Harrington left for Colorado. We would opine that of all the snubs Greenberg teams have been a part of, this was the most egregious one.
This was a year when even teams with a high number of losses were still capable of beating the best, and more than on a lark. Villanova’s 18-14 mark included two wins over Syracuse, one when the Orangemen were ranked No. 1 in the country, plus another over eventual NCAA 1 seed Connecticut. Similarly, Kansas State made the field with 17 wins certainly due in part to victories over then-top ranked Oklahoma and then-No. 3 Missouri. How thin was the Wildcats’ margin? Their season-opening one-point win over Florida State in the Great Alaska Shootout quarterfinals came when Tony Massop cradled into the basket an airballed 30-footer a fraction of a second before the buzzer sounded; lose there and K-State with a 16-15 record is an almost-certain NIT team.
Notre Dame got in with a weak overall record, and its selection over DePaul was especially puzzling to many given the Blue Demons held a similar record (18-14) and had just beaten the Fighting Irish twice in three weeks before the tournament. The Irish defeated top-five teams Missouri and Syracuse late in the season, though, including a 31-point rout of the Tigers, and played an overall taxing schedule. DePaul also beat the Irish twice, though, and like Notre Dame played a strong national schedule as an independent, with a whopping 16 games against NCAA tourney teams, though a 5-11 record against those teams was a reasonable argument against the Blue Demons. In a connected fact, Texas’s win over DePaul on the road on CBS in early March may have been a decider for both teams, perhaps sewing up the Longhorns’ bid as they otherwise missed in just about every high-profile chance they had against a soon-to-be-typical tough Tom Penders schedule.
Hawaii also won 23 games, finished third in the WAC and made its tourney final before losing to UTEP on the Miners’ home court. The Rainbow Warriors for sure had a fair case as the No. 3 finisher in the WAC and with a 40 RPI, and certainly were good enough to play in the NCAAs. A narrow loss to Kansas State in the Great Alaska Shootout semifinals may have been the difference. Hawaii coach Riley Wallace felt national and conference politics, among other things, may have hurt his team, saying in the Honolulu Advertiser: “It’s not fair, it’s political…We don’t get a lot of political support, even from our own conference. The conference treats us like the new kid on the block. Sometimes they act like we’re not even on the same block.” The school’s athletic director Stan Sheriff was even more direct in comments in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, saying “There’s no justice. Those on the selection committee are just a bunch of jerks and I will tell them that every time I see them.”
Southern Illinois also missed despite winning the MVC regular season title and 26 games overall. The Salukis also were victimized by playing a conference tourney final on the road, losing at Illinois State by three. A soft non-conference schedule also did in SIU, as the loss to Hawaii, a win over OVC champion Murray State and a home-and-home split with eventual NIT finalist Saint Louis were the most notable results. Coach Rich Herrin ripped the selection committee after the bracket was announced right and did so right on ESPN, saying among other things “There’s no question we didn’t get a fair shake. I think it’s the most unfair situation I’ve had in 30 years in athletics. I question the honesty and integrity of the committee.”
Along with those fireworks after the selections, there also was Maryland from the ACC left out with an 18-13 record. The Terrapins had just been slapped with a major three-year probation the week before that included a penalty of two years with no postseason. That penalty was set to start the following year, though, which kept the Terps eligible for the 1990 tourney, but they were not selected after placing seventh at 6-8 in the ACC. Some theorized that Maryland was being punished in advance of its probation; far more likely is that the conference finish plus non-conference losses to Coppin State and Boston University kept out the Terps.
1991
Last in: 10 USC (19-9), 10 Temple (21-9), 11 Connecticut (18-10), 11 Georgia (17-12), 11 Southern Mississippi (21-7), 13 Northern Illinois (25-5), 14 New Mexico (20-9), 14 New Orleans (23-7)
Left out: UAB (18-13), Cincinnati (17-11), Fordham (24-7), Houston (18-10), La Salle (20-10), Providence (17-12), Wyoming (19-11)
Multi-bid conferences: 13
The 1991 NCAA Tournament had a tough act to follow after the superlative 1990 tourney, but it was unique just the same. For one, CBS televised the entire tournament for the first time, acing out ESPN and its outstanding early round coverage with a bid for the whole event. Also, the final draw included three at-larges seeded 13 or lower, the most-ever seeded that low to this day. This also was the year where three conference champions never even made it to the tourney, and in fact were never even considered parts of the tournament while playing in play-in contests.
Once again, 13 different conferences put at least one team in the tournament, and among those with two were the Big West, Metro, Mid-Continent, plus the American South for the first and last time, as the young league would merge with the Sun Belt for the next year. Eight different conferences were represented among the eight at-large teams seeded 10th or lower.
Southern Mississippi was ranked for the entire season, including as high as ninth in mid-February, but the Golden Eagles went from 20-3 at one point to nearly out of the tourney after losing four of their last five. The low seed didn’t make much sense, not when Southern Miss won the Metro regular season, opened the season with a win over eventual NCAA 5 seed Alabama, and split with a Florida State team seeded four lines above them in the NCAAs, but perhaps the committee knew something when the Golden Eagles were blitzed by North Carolina State by 29 in their NCAA opener.
New Mexico got in-finally!-ending a string of seven straight NIT appearances. The Lobos led by Luc Longley probably boasted more impressive seasons than this where they finished third in the WAC and bowed out in the conference tourney quarterfinals, but wins over Utah and New Mexico State teams that were seeded 4 and 6 in the NCAAs, respectively, was apparently enough. Also in was New Orleans, which with Ervin Johnson was nationally ranked for three weeks in late January and early February and was 19-3 at one point before losing four of eight down the stretch. A win over Virginia on the road at the end of November, victories over the top two teams in the Sun Belt including bubble team UAB, and a regular season title in the strong (and short-lived) American South helped the Privateers to their second at-large spot in five years.
Northern Illinois was perhaps a surprising choice, but the Huskies came from a Mid-Continent Conference that had fared well in the Big Dance with teams like Cleveland State, Northern Iowa and SW Missouri State in previous years. In fact, NIU was the fourth Mid-Continent at-large team in a six-year stretch from 1986-91. The Huskies’ win ledger really included just one notable victory-over DePaul in mid-January-but that, a close loss at eventual NCAA 3 seed Nebraska in February, a gaudy record and a Mid-Con title were enough.
Georgia Tech was not just in with a 16-12 record and a losing conference mark, but an 8 seed. The Yellow Jackets posted wins over Arizona and North Carolina, two wins over Virginia and victories over fellow bubble types Georgia and Villanova. Tech played the fourth-ranked strength of schedule in the country that year per ancient NCAA RPI data, and other than a season-ending defeat at ACC bottom feeder Clemson it was hard to point to a bad loss.
Another win that may have got Tech in was one over Fordham, which CBS actually spent quite a bit of time talking about after the selections. The Rams had wins over Dayton, Seton Hall, Vanderbilt and Xavier, teams that all made the NCAA Tournament (including Seton Hall as a 3 seed in the West Regional). Fordham won the Patriot League tourney but then lost to St. Francis (Pa.) in one of the oft-forgotten play-in games of 1991, as champions from the Big South, MEAC, Northeast Conference, Patriot, Southland and SWAC were forced to play three games before the field was announced, an arrangement after the NCAA had frozen the number of automatic berths at 30. An oddity is that while these were games to play into the tournament, they are not marked as ‘official’ NCAA Tournament play-in games.
Fordham certainly had a case and could’ve been selected over Georgia, which was a middling 17-12 overall. The Bulldogs finished 9-9 in the SEC, and other than a win over Texas in December did very little until a closing stretch of five straight wins (including two victories over NCAA 9 seed Vanderbilt and another over NCAA 4 seed Alabama) before a decisive SEC tourney semifinal loss to a Tennessee team that finished 12-22. Fordham coach Nick Macarchuk could’ve been sour after his team missed out, but he was more than gracious, saying “of course we’re disappointed…but the very point I’m trying to make to everyone is, don’t look at is as we lost, but rather that some other people won. I’m not shocked it didn’t happen; I don’t think anyone should be. We were a bubble team, and not a lock.” UAB coach Gene Bartow was just as classy after his Blazers missed the dance with an 18-13 mark, saying “I wasn’t surprised, although being second in the (Sun Belt) as we were and with 18 wins I felt we had a chance…I looked at the listing and I can’t see anybody they picked who didn’t deserve to be in. They did a good job as they always do and I have no gripes.”
Similar to Georgia Tech, Villanova was in with 16 wins, though its schedule rated even tougher than the Yellow Jackets’-the Wildcats had the No. 2-ranked SOS in the RPI. Villanova made it with just a 16-14 mark, the worst-ever record for an at-large then and tied with Georgia in 2001 to this day for the worst ever for at-large selection. USC was another team that could’ve been in danger of missing out, for the Trojans played a tissue-soft non-conference schedule but did knock off Arizona and UCLA in the Pac-10 and finished 10-3 down the stretch. Southern Cal made it back to the NCAAs for the first time in six years led by exciting sophomore Harold Miner.
Other than Fordham, it was hard to make too much of an argument for teams that get in. Many of the most prominent ones were below the 20-win mark and had double-digit losses in a time when schedules were considerably shorter than they are now. La Salle did win 20 games, topped NCAA teams BYU and Villanova and had made three straight trips to the NCAAs, but the Explorers also lost three times to MAAC tourney champion St. Peter’s and had enough other questionable losses sprinkled in such as a 16-point loss at 12-20 Notre Dame. Providence would’ve been the eighth (of nine teams) from a ridiculously strong Big East, and the Friars faced a stretch of ten straight ranked teams in league play and won five of those games. A very light non-conference schedule loaded with teams like Morgan State, New Hampshire, Brown and Liberty apparently did PC in.
1992
Last in: 10 Iowa State (20-12), 10 Tulane (21-8), 11 South Florida (19-9), 11 Temple (17-12), 12 Stanford (18-10), 12 West Virginia (20-11)
Left out: UAB (20-8), Ball State (24-8), UC Santa Barbara (20-8), Notre Dame (14-14), Penn State (21-7), Southern Illinois (22-7), Villanova (14-14), Virginia (15-13), Washington State (21-10), Wisconsin-Green Bay (25-4)
Multi-bid conferences: 11
Some may call this opinion, others may cite it as backed up with facts, but we’re going to say it here: NCAA Tournament at-large selections took a turn for the worse in 1992.
A string of eight straight years with at least 13 multi-bid conferences represented in the field was snapped, as just 11 leagues received more than one bid. Part of that may have had to do with conference movement from the Metro and Sun Belt conferences; at the same time, a new league (the Great Midwest) was created and the Metro remained strong, so that effect was minimal. Some also might note that this is really when the era of major super conferences started, as the SEC expanded to 12 teams this year and the Big Ten would soon be at 11. Whether the effect of that was those leagues reducing the pool of at-large caliber squads in leagues lower down the food chain, or the beginning of a greed power play by the richest leagues that has lasted more than 25 years, could be debated forever.
The most disappointing snub by a good margin was that of Wisconsin-Green Bay. Full disclosure: this one was a bit personal. Growing up in the middle of Wisconsin, UW-Green Bay was the closest NCAA Division I program to us, and in grade school and high school this writer was a fan of the Phoenix, coach Dick Bennett and his son and star guard (and future national championship winner as a coach) Tony Bennett.
Aside from that, though, UWGB was 25-4 that year, one year after making its first-ever trip to the NCAAs and losing at the buzzer to Steve Smith and Michigan State in the first round. In 1991-92, the Phoenix won at Purdue by 16, defeated Colorado at home and topped 21-win Butler at the buzzer on the road in a memorable game on a Saturday early afternoon in January on ESPN on a three-pointer in the final seconds by Tony Bennett. (Yes, ESPN actually featured teams like them on a Saturday then) UWGB also won the Mid-Continent Conference by four games, and 17 of its 24 D-I wins were by double-digit margins.
UW-Green Bay was 24-3 in the regular season, but had the misfortune of losing starting guard John Martinez to a season-ending knee injury before its conference tournament. Without his 10 points and five assists per game, the Phoenix rolled in their Mid-Continent tourney opener but then were stunned by fourth-place finisher Eastern Illinois in the semifinals. Unquestionably, that left them on the bubble for the NCAA Tournament. Still, one would’ve thought a record with that few blemishes, plus a recent history of being a tough out under Bennett (yes, we know history isn’t an official part of the selection process…) should’ve been enough for the committee to know UWGB was legit. Even the numbers should’ve supported it enough; though the conference schedule was weak, by a review of the RPI from the NCAA’s archives, the Phoenix was 7-2 against the top 150 that year, including a pair of top 50 wins (Butler and Purdue) on the road.
Instead, Green Bay was left out with what was then and would be for four more years the best record and fewest losses of an eligible at-large contender in tourney history. In was Stanford at 18-10, Wake Forest at 17-11 (and all the way up at a 9 seed) and Iowa State with 20 wins but also a 5-9 mark in the Big 8. Yes, the Phoenix being left out was personal. But it also was a clear rebuke of the importance of winning games, and one of the earliest examples of a committee seemingly looking for reasons to keep a team like this out. This wasn’t a MEAC or SWAC team piling up big numbers in a bottom feeder league. The Mid-Continent wasn’t great that year (19th in Jeff Sagarin’s USA Today rankings then), but it wasn’t that weak, either, and had shown quite well in the NCAAs in the past.
CBS’s Greg Gumbel-who was familiar with UWGB after broadcasting its NCAA tourney game the year before-seemed almost flabbergasted after announcing the selections when he mentioned teams left out and noted the Phoenix’s record. In a post-selection interview Gumbel was direct in asking selection committee chair and SEC commissioner Roy Kramer about UW-Green Bay and Ball State, another team left out with 24 wins. In that interview and others that night, Kramer harped on strength of schedule, and also alluded to Martinez’s injury as perhaps affecting the Phoenix’s chances. Two games should not have been enough sample size for the committee to know how much it affected a team, though.
Besides UW-Green Bay, a story of the selections was the reconstituted Metro Conference getting four bids, including Tulane and South Florida as two of the six lowest seeds of at-larges. The Green Wave should’ve been a shoo-in after 21 wins and tying UNC Charlotte for the Metro title, though, and USF held wins over Florida State (NCAA 3 seed), Iowa (9 seed) plus in conference Louisville (8 seed) at home and UNCC (7 seed) and Tulane on the road. For Tulane, it was the culmination of a lightning-quick build by Perry Clark, who restarted a program that had been shut down for four years and went from 4-24 in 1989-90 to an NCAA bid two years later.
West Virginia snuck in despite late struggles, when a 16-5 mark and a 10-game winning streak dissolved into five losses in seven games to wrap up the regular season before a run to the finals in the Atlantic 10 Tournament. Temple held a mediocre record but played a wild, typical John Chaney non-conference schedule that was fairly rewarded. Wake Forest’s record was questionable, as was a non-conference slate including UNC Greensboro, the Citadel, Fairfield, Fairleigh Dickinson, VMI and Samford. It just so happened that the Demon Deacons also defeated top-ranked and soon-to-be two-time national champion Duke, Tulane and Temple (all at home) late in the season. Stanford was the obvious choice of a team that could’ve been left out. The Cardinal did not win a single game against the tournament field and held an overall underwhelming resume; their biggest plus may have been having some star power with All-American Adam Keefe. Even Washington State-which finished a game behind Stanford in the Pac-10 standings but went 21-10 with a similarly soft non-league schedule-was able to knock off NCAA 2 seed USC late in the season at home.
The other certainly debatable pick was Iowa State, which clearly was rewarded more for who its high points than punished for its lows. The Cyclones won 20 games, but three were against non-Division I opponents. A 5-9 mark in the Big 8 was good for only sixth place, but six Big 8 teams made the tourney, and ISU did defeat Kansas, Oklahoma State, Oklahoma and Missouri (NCAA tourney 1, 2, 4 and 5 seeds, respectively), plus state rival Iowa in December. One could’ve easily argued, though, that Iowa State deserved to be punished for a schedule that also included weaklings Maryland-Eastern Shore, Maine, Northern Iowa, Texas-Arlington, Fairfield, Drake and Chicago State. But it wasn’t.
Ball State was ignored with a 24-8 mark, not terribly surprising given the Cardinals’ schedule but a disappointment for a Mid-American Conference that had put teams in the Sweet 16 each of the previous two years. Three more teams that were heavily discussed before the tourney were Virginia, Notre Dame and Villanova, the Cavaliers with a 15-13 mark, the latter two both with 14-14 records. Many wondered how low the committee would go when it comes to teams’ overall records. The answer was: not that low. All three had the requisite big wins needed for selection, but all three also had too many losses outside those top tier opportunities.
1993
Last in: 10 Memphis State (20-11), 10 Missouri (19-13), 10 Nebraska (20-10), 10 SMU (20-7), 11 LSU (22-10), 11 Tulane (21-8), 12 George Washington (19-8), 12 Marquette (20-7)
Left out: Houston (21-8), Idaho (24-8), Jackson State (24-8), James Madison (21-8), Minnesota (17-10), UNLV (21-7), Niagara (23-6), Oklahoma (19-11), Pepperdine (22-7), Providence (17-11), St. Joseph’s (18-10)
Multi-bid conferences: 14
The 1992 tourney’s consolidation of bids to 11 conferences, its fewest since 1982 (when the field included just 48 teams) proved to be a one-year blip for the time being. This time, 14 conferences put at least two teams in the dance, tied for the second-most ever and far more in line with the trend from 1984 onward.
This year also was the beginning of what was described as an explicit change in the committee’s evaluation of conference champions, and what would be a four-year trend of the committee rewarding conference performance. In reality, teams like New Mexico State (NCAA 7 seed), New Orleans (8 seed) and Xavier (9 seed) in 1993 were likely safe in the field anyway, but the committee making a change to put all regular season conference champions on the board was a development noticed by many. SMU in particular was a fairly surprising selection with no big non-conference wins and after losing in its conference tourney quarterfinals, but the Mustangs won the Southwest Conference title with a 12-2 mark and were selected. “We made a principle adjustment this year by saying we have to put on the board all the champions of their respective conferences,” said committee chair and Duke A.D. Tom Butters. “Our view is if these teams played so well for so long, they deserved consideration…the important thing is I think you will see more of this in the future.”
Also getting some of the last at-larges, though, were the likes of Tulane, George Washington and Marquette. The Green Wave spent a good share of the season in the national rankings and performed well in a still-strong Metro Conference to nab their second straight bid. The Colonials were a terrific story, in the tourney for the first time since 1961. GW was far from an open-and-shut case as one of four teams to tie for second in the Atlantic 10 at just 8-6 in conference. Wins over NCAA qualifiers Temple and Rhode Island were deemed enough, though, and the Atlantic 10 clearly was regarded well by the committee with four teams in the tourney. Marquette got off to a flying 17-2 start, but stumbled with five losses in eight games down the stretch and just barely snuck in. In fact, legendary former coach Al McGuire himself said he thought the Warriors may have got in because they “never had a giant-size problem with the NCAA,” perhaps implying that it helped his former school get in over a team like UNLV.
As big a story as those getting in were those who didn’t. Minnesota, Oklahoma, Providence and UNLV were a quartet of heavy hitters from major conferences and/or who had been regulars in the tourney in recent years, and any or all could have been selected but were left out. Minnesota was 4-8 against the RPI top 50 and 7-10 against the top 100, according to Butters, and also went 3-8 on the road and played a poorly rated non-conference schedule. Golden Gophers coach Clem Haskins was steamed after his team was left out, even implying that the Big Ten wasn’t doing enough to push for his team and promoted other conference teams instead of his. Providence, per Butters, played poorly against teams inside the top 50, and Oklahoma’s 19 wins looked good until one took note that three of them were against non-Division I competition.
An ironic twist also came in the Big West, where Long Beach State was a surprising tournament winner from the No. 4 seed spot, defeating top seed New Mexico State in the championship game. The 49ers and Aggies both received bids to the NCAAs but UNLV did not. That was especially notable because the Runnin’ Rebels in Rollie Massimino’s first year were nationally ranked the entire season and were 19th in the Associated Press poll that week. On CBS’s selection show though, Butters seemed to imply that when Long Beach played in the Big West final earlier that afternoon, there were three Big West teams playing for two spots in the field. When the 49ers won the automatic bid-earning an 11 seed in the West Regional-it may well have knocked UNLV out of the tourney. A 5-5 finish to the regular season and perhaps the Big West’s Sunday tournament slot apparently did in the Rebels, who missed the NCAAs despite a 5-3 record against the NCAA field. And all of this came three years after Long Beach State was on the wrong side of an either/or in the bracket, and their loss to UNLV in the Big West final on Selection Sunday in 1990 put UC Santa Barbara in but kept the 49ers out.
One of the most interesting cases was Jackson State, the SWAC regular season champion with a future longtime NBA performer in Lindsey Hunter. The Tigers played a gauntlet of a non-conference schedule, defeating then-ranked Tulane and falling to Illinois, Kansas and Memphis by single-digit margins before reeling off 21 wins in their next 22 games going into the SWAC Tournament final. The championship game on ESPN was played during the selection show, though, and the 13 seed in the West was reserved for the SWAC winner, no doubt granted with the Tigers in mind as it was a considerably better seed than conference representatives normally received. It also allowing no room for JSU into the tourney if it lost to the Jaguars, though. Sure enough, Southern rolled to a 101-80 win in the tourney final, keeping Jackson State out of the NCAAs.
1994
Last in: 10 George Washington (17-11), 10 Maryland (16-11), 10 New Mexico (23-7), 10 Seton Hall (17-12), 11 Western Kentucky (20-10), 12 College of Charleston (24-3), 12 Tulsa (21-7)
Left out: BYU (21-9), Canisius (22-6), Georgia Tech (16-12), Mississippi State (18-10), Murray State (23-5), Oklahoma (15-12), Texas A&M (19-10), Villanova (15-12), Xavier (20-7)
Multi-bid conferences: 12
The 1994 NCAA tourney was the first of a two-year stretch with some very enlightened at-large selections. For those worn down today by cynicism, essentially expecting the committee to always give the benefit of the doubt to teams from the top conferences, it may be instructional to see there was a time when the selection committee looked kindly on a different group of teams, one that some might say deserve it because they just kept winning games.
None fit that bill better than College of Charleston receiving an at-large nod for the first time at the Division I level despite being so new to the scene that it wasn’t even eligible for an automatic berth through the Trans America Athletic Conference (now Atlantic Sun). The Cougars didn’t even have a ton in the quality wins department in 1994. A 22-point blowout of NCAA 9 seed Alabama was the main one; victories over Penn State and UNC Charlotte also brought some cache. Coach John Kresse said he was just hoping for an NIT bid, but Charleston finished the regular season on a 16-game winning streak and was rewarded. It was clearly a case of committee preference winning out over sheer quantity of power numbers. “We saw how they had a number of quality wins, we saw how they beat Alabama,” said committee chair and Duke athletic director Tom Butters. “That gave them an opportunity to be noticed and to be compared to others.”
Tulsa also was a mostly unexpected pick as the Missouri Valley’s first at-large selection since 1988. The Golden Hurricane won the MVC regular season title, though, and lost by just two points in overtime at home to top-ranked Arkansas in December. A 10-3 road record and a win over SWC co-runner up Texas Tech plus at RPI top 60 VCU also may have helped. Western Kentucky also somewhat surprisingly gave the Sun Belt two teams even with a 20-10 record. The Hilltoppers also won their regular season title, though-again, a theme in tourney selection from 1993-96-and played North Carolina, Louisville, Princeton, Indiana, UAB and Kansas State out of conference. In all, the 64-team field included 12 multi-bid conferences, including seven Big Ten teams and every one of them seeded ninth or better.
One who took issue with Western’s bid was Murray State coach Scott Edgar. The Racers had maybe one of their best teams yet in 1994, with a 23-5 squad that rolled through the Ohio Valley regular season and also had brand-name wins over Memphis and Mississippi. Murray was stunned by regular season runner-up Tennessee State by one point in the OVC tourney final, and finished with the most wins that year of any team not selected for the NCAAs. Edgar was irate. “I challenge every one of those (blank) bubble teams that got in to come to Racer Arena and play us home and home,” he said. “Western (Kentucky) won’t even play us anymore. They know they’d get their (bleeps) beat here.”
As questionable as Western Kentucky’s bid might have been, Seton Hall’s was right there too. The Pirates’ 17-12 mark included a run to the semifinals of the Big East tourney, where they defeated league runner-up and NCAA 4 seed Syracuse before losing in overtime to Georgetown. Seton Hall played a tough schedule; it just didn’t win enough against it. The Pirates went 3-10 against the teams above them in the Big East standings, and home wins over NIT teams Stanford and Texas A&M were the best of their non-conference performance. If the committee wanted a team with a mediocre record and high-end wins, Georgia Tech at 16-12 was perhaps the better pick. The Yellow Jackets defeated ranked Vanderbilt and Temple teams out of conference and topped defending national champion North Carolina twice in the ACC, though they also flamed out by 25 points against Wake Forest in the ACC quarterfinals.
As for the teams left out, Xavier was probably the most glaring omission, the Musketeers missing the field for just the second time since 1985. Xavier won 20 games, defeated Cincinnati and Dayton from the Great Midwest Conference and blew out 18-win Virginia Tech by 33 points. It was likely a non-conference schedule with too many Hartfords and New Hampshires that kept the Muskies out. In fact, the Midwestern Collegiate Conference did not have an automatic bid that year, meaning tourney champion Detroit Mercy did not make the NCAAs either.
Others mentioned on CBS’s selection show as seeing their bubbles burst included BYU, Georgia Tech, Mississippi State, Texas A&M and Villanova. BYU finished third in the WAC, though, behind champion New Mexico and Fresno State, likely a major chip against the Cougars. Mississippi State had a solid year but went just 6-8 in its last 14 games. Texas A&M’s RPI of 98 meant the Aggies were likely not much of a contender at all, despite a nice comeback that year under second-year coach Tony Barone. Much noise also was made about the likes of Oklahoma and Villanova not making the tourney with 15-12 marks, but the cases against them should be pretty obvious based on their overall records. Oklahoma did hold a 33 RPI, one of the highest RPI ratings to ever be left out to that point.
Up next tomorrow: Part 3 looking at 1995-99
