Part 3 of our reflection, research and review of Selection Sundays and the NCAA Tournament bubble over the last 35 years looks year-by-year at 1995-99. The stretch started with conference champions like Manhattan, Miami (Ohio) and Santa Clara rewarded in 1995, then saw a shift towards mid-pack majors as the 90s drew to a close but also surges by a trio of slightly lesser-known Midwestern leagues late in the decade as well.
Previous:
Introduction
Part 1
Part 2
1995
Last at-large teams in by seed: 10 seed Florida (17-12 record), 10 Stanford (19-8), 10 Temple (19-10), 11 Illinois (19-11), 11 Xavier (23-4), 12 Miami Ohio (22-6), 12 Santa Clara (21-6), 13 Manhattan (25-4)
Left out: College of Charleston (23-5), George Washington (18-13), Georgia (18-9), Georgia Tech (18-12), Iowa (19-11), New Mexico State (23-9), Ohio University (23-9), Texas Tech (20-9), Virginia Tech (20-10)
Multi-bid conferences: 15
No single year sticks out more in the tourney’s history for an example of the committee showing a commitment to conference champions than this one. Manhattan, Miami (Ohio), Santa Clara and Xavier all received at-large bids despite losing in their conference tourneys, while names the likes of George Washington, Georgia, Georgia Tech and Iowa were left out. In the history of at-large selections, it really was one of the defining moments by a committee clearly committed to giving less-visible teams a reasonable look and trying to understand what their records meant.
Manhattan and Santa Clara were especially surprises, the Jaspers coming from a Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference that had never received an at-large bid, while the Broncos were knocked out of the West Coast Conference tourney in the quarterfinals. Manhattan led by Fran Fraschilla didn’t have a signature win, but was 9-3 against teams ranked 51-150 in the RPI, per committee chair and Kansas A.D. Bob Frederick, who also said “one thing that kept sticking out to us was that they’d won 25 games.” Rarely has such a common sense statement been made by a committee member. The Jaspers had a terrific season under the radar, and it was a breath of fresh air seeing it rewarded. Santa Clara posted convincing early-season wins at Fresno State and UAB, at home against future NCAA 6 seed Oregon and lost by just five at NCAA 1 seed Kansas. The Broncos also won nine straight before a nearly disastrous finish, losing at seventh-place Pepperdine to close the regular season and then to 8 seed Loyola Marymount in the WCC tourney-at home. The latter two losses surely could’ve cost Dick Davey’s team-and one can’t even imagine how much social media would’ve overreacted to such results these days.
Miami (Ohio) also did not have necessarily a signature win, but the Redskins dominated the Mid-American with a 16-2 mark in what was the No. 13-ranked conference that year, per Jerry Palm’s collegerpi.com site. Like Manhattan, Miami was mostly solid against the top 150 (10-6 per collegerpi.com). Likewise, Xavier steamrolled 14-0 through the Midwestern Collegiate Conference (now Horizon League), and the Musketeers also picked up a significant chip when they won at soon-to-be Atlantic 10 conference mate George Washington in late February, defeating one of the teams they likely were battling for an at-large spot. Like Santa Clara, Xavier also lost its conference tourney quarterfinal, falling to eighth-seeded Wright State on a buzzer beater and on the Raiders’ homecourt.
Committee chair Frederick said after the selections were released, ”It’s fair to say the last couple of years we’ve looked very hard at conference champions,” while also noting ”still, those teams had to meet the same scrutiny that the other teams had to meet.” The selection of those teams resulted in a record 15 multi-bid conferences, and viewing them in such a positive light should’ve been affirmed when both Miami and Manhattan scored first-round wins, and even when a sixth-seeded MVC champion Tulsa made the Sweet 16. Alas, two years later, just nine conferences had two or more representatives in the field.
Even with those picks, there still was room to question Stanford’s inclusion. The Cardinal finished 19-8 (18-8 against Division I teams) and played a weak non-conference schedule, but a 10-0 start including a strong win at NCAA 4 seed Virginia got them into the national rankings, and a 10-8 mark in the Pac-10 got them not just in, but a too-high 10 seed. Michigan-a 9 seed with a 17-13 record-also was certainly a debatable pick, to put it politely. The Wolverines struggled with consistency all season, only winning as many as three games in a row once. An 11-7 Big Ten mark, two wins over Indiana, a home one-point win over then-ranked Iowa and a road win at NCAA 11 seed Illinois were the highlights, but there was more than enough mediocrity to have kept Steve Fisher’s team out.
Among those left out, Iowa may have had the strongest case. The Hawkeyes defeated three ranked teams at home in Big Ten play and also topped Duke in December in the Rainbow Classic, before the Blue Devils went on a major slide soon after when Mike Krzyzewski was sidelined due to complications from offseason back surgery. Iowa even defeated Gary Trent and Ohio University in early December when the Bobcats were ranked 14th in the nation after a preseason NIT title. The Hawkeyes’ downfall was a 9-9 mark and seventh place in the Big Ten, plus a horrible closing statement with a 31-point loss to Indiana in their season finale. In truth, Iowa’s resume was better than Michigan’s, but in an era when unbalanced league schedules were not as common as they are now, it was little surprise that the committee took the team that finished two games better in conference.
In fact, the Big Ten as a whole was a mess to figure out; the league received six bids, most of any conference, but it could’ve been as many as seven or as few as three, considering Illinois was an 11 seed and NCAA 8 seed Minnesota-Great Alaska Shootout champions to start the year before an uneven season followed-was the highest-RPI team (67) of any at-large selection that year. (Conspiracy theorists might point out that Golden Gophers athletic director McKinley Boston was on the selection committee that year.) CBS commentator Billy Packer even questioned the league getting six bids, saying after the selections that “the league had balance. But since when does balance create quality? I just don’t see how it can be justified to be the seventh-ranked league in the country and end up with more teams than anyone else.”
Georgia Tech defeated three top-20 teams in ACC play-all at home-but the Yellow Jackets also were 8-12 against the top 100. Georgia and George Washington, though possessing records and quality wins to be in the field, actually ranked in the 70s in the RPI, likely a death knell to their hopes. Ohio U. got off to a rockin’ start with wins at Ohio State and Virginia and then over George Washington and New Mexico State in overtime in the final to win the preseason NIT. The Bobcats also had a star in Trent but finished second to Miami in the MAC, and two losses to the Redskins, defeats at Iowa and Xavier and a few too many losses to teams just below them in the MAC kept them out. The argument could’ve been made that Ohio deserved better for a brutal non-conference schedule that included six opponents in the top 75, not including Ohio State and West Virginia.
New Mexico State also made a run in the preseason NIT to the final, defeating USC, Alabama and Memphis along the way, and also went 3-1 against rivals New Mexico and UTEP, but the Aggies finished a game behind Utah State for the Big West title, or they just might’ve been snagging one of those at-large spots. NMSU should’ve been very close, with a 2-2 mark against the top 50 and 6-5 against the top 100.
1996
Last in: 10 Kansas State (17-11), 10 Oklahoma (17-12), 10 Santa Clara (19-8), 10 Texas (20-9), 11 Boston College (18-10), 11 George Washington (21-7), 12 Arkansas (18-12), 12 California (17-10)
Left out: Alabama (16-11), Arkansas-Little Rock (23-6), College of Charleston (24-3), Davidson (25-4), Fresno State (20-10), Minnesota (18-12), Oklahoma State (17-10), Providence (17-11), Tulane (18-9)
The 1996 tourney selections began to see a shift started that accelerated full throttle the next year. There were still 13 multi-bid conferences this year, but there also was an increase in teams with thoroughly mediocre records getting in, quite likely at the expense of league champions who were rewarded the previous few years.
Arkansas and California were the final two in by seed, and both could’ve easily been left out, and some would argue probably should have been. Cal finished 17-10, but was regarded as hypertalented with Shareef Abdur-Rahim, Ed Gray and future NFL Hall of Famer Tony Gonzalez. The Golden Bears did defeat fellow bubble team Minnesota on the road in December, but were just 3-7 against the top 50 and 8-10 vs. the top 100. Arkansas was 18-12 with not a whole lot of excellence throughout the year (including being just 1-7 against the top 50), but the Razorbacks had appeared in the previous two NCAA title games and thus would’ve been a surprise to be left out.
Oklahoma had a very middling record but finished strong and perhaps just as importantly finished third in the Big 8. How thin was the Sooners’ margin? They played six overtime games that year, finishing 4-2 in them. Kansas State’s record was similar, but the Wildcats won at NCAA 5 seed Iowa State late in the season, beat fellow bubble team California in December and did notch six top 50 wins. K-State’s Big 8 tourney quarterfinal win over Oklahoma State also may have been a play-in game for the NCAAs, as the teams tied for fourth in the Big 8 and had almost identical records. In fact, committee chairman Bob Frederick seemed to intimate it was exactly that, saying “that was very important to them, and was a significant loss for (Oklahoma State).”
Clemson got in and all the way as a 9 seed with an 18-10 record thinner than it looked. A mostly pillow-soft non-conference slate coupled with a few opportunistic wins at home-including one over a once again ranked Duke team-vaulted the Tigers to an 11-0 start and into the national rankings. Clemson finished losing 10 of its final 17, though, including a win over Division I transitional member Wofford, and that plus a 7-9 ACC mark certainly was enough to keep the Tigers out. Boston College was a nice story and had a solid season, but was just 2-9 against the top 50 and 4-9 vs. the top 100. Santa Clara did get in as the WCC regular season champion for the second straight year, led by Steve Nash and a splashy early win over defending national champion UCLA. The Broncos had two top 25 wins and were a robust 10-4 against the top 100, but almost gave that back with four sub-100 losses. George Washington went 21-7, held three top 50 wins, and was the only team to topple powerful Massachusetts.
The biggest disappointments both came from the Carolinas. College of Charleston was a huge surprise two years earlier when it made the field while still in the transition phase to Division I, but this time the same 24-3 record didn’t cut it with early double-digit losses to Syracuse and Connecticut, a late defeat at SE Louisiana in conference, and really no notable non-conference scalps. Every single one of the Cougars’ wins came against teams outside the top 150. Davidson’s snub perhaps stung even more. The Wildcats went undefeated through the Southern Conference-16-0-and had a 19-game winning streak until being upset by Western Carolina in the SoCon tourney final. Davidson had three non-Division I wins, though, and the Southern also was lowly rated this year (tourney champion Western Carolina was a 16 seed). The Wildcats best non-conference wins were over Mississippi and UNC Charlotte teams that had mediocre seasons. Both were on the road, though, and given the previous year’s selections, one might’ve thought a 19-game winning streak and a 5-3 mark against the top 150 would’ve held some weight.
Tulane was a team that seemed to have an NCAA bid wrapped up a couple weeks before selections, but the Green Wave lost three of their final four-all to ranked Conference USA teams, it should be noted-and were left out. Tulane probably deserved better, with a 4-4 mark against the top 50 and at 8-7 vs. the top 100. Minnesota was acknowledged by committee chair Frederick as one of the teams just missing out, but he noted the Gophers’ 8-12 mark against teams in the top 100 as a weakness offsetting a top-50 RPI, a 7-2 finish and a 10-8 record in the Big Ten. It was something of a 1993 redux for Providence, which joined Minnesota both of those years as among those left out, and both of those years with 17-11 records for the Friars. A 5-10 mark against the top 100 did in PC this time.
Another left out was Arkansas-Little Rock under Wimp Sanderson. The Trojans tied New Orleans for the Sun Belt title in an outstanding season, but lost to the Privateers by a point at the buzzer in a classic tournament final. UALR won at then-eighth ranked and future NCAA 5 seed Mississippi State early in the season and won 13 of 14 down the stretch before the loss in the Sun Belt final. The Trojans had two top 50 wins (2-3 record), but were done in by their conference and a schedule where a full 17 of their 21 D-I wins were against teams outside the top 150.
1997
Last in: 10 Georgetown (20-9), 10 Providence (21-11), 10 Texas (16-11), 10 Vanderbilt (19-11), 11 Massachusetts (19-13), 11 Oklahoma (19-10), 11 USC (17-10)
Left out: Bowling Green (22-9), Fresno State (20-11), Hawaii (20-7), Michigan (19-11), New Orleans (22-6), SW Missouri State (24-8), Syracuse (19-12), TCU (21-12), Tulane (20-10), UNLV (20-9), West Virginia (19-9)
Multi-bid conferences: 9
It may not have been recognized at the time, but the selections for the 1997 NCAA Tournament marked the beginning of a whole new era.
After tourneys of 13, 14, occasionally even 15 multi-bid conferences was the norm through the first 12 years of the 64-team field-and even for a few years before-the 1997 NCAA Tournament was a distinct change. Just nine leagues put an at-large team in, easily the lowest of the 64-team era and in fact since 1978, the final year before teams were seeded and at a time when the tourney was just 32 teams and independents made up a full quarter of the field. Never since 1996 have as many as 13 leagues received multiple bids, and rarely have there been as many as 12 such conferences.
Certainly in 1997 there were some valid reasons for that, namely conference expansion and contraction. This was the first year of the Big 12, which combined the old Big 8 with half of the Southwest Conference. Conference USA also came along the year before, and it essentially replaced both the Great Midwest and Metro conferences. Also, 1997 was a good year for conference regular season champions to win their tournaments, with champions or co-champions of recent at-large leagues like the Big West, Mid-American, Midwestern Collegiate, Missouri Valley and WCC all winning their tourneys.
Furthermore, it’s not as if the 1997 tourney was filled with mediocrity; just 11 of the 34 at-large teams had double-digit losses, and only two had more than 11 losses. Still, it was obvious that this year’s selection committee collectively came in with a different mandate than previous ones. The benefit of the doubt thoroughly went to teams like Virginia (18-12, and with a 7-9 ACC record), Oklahoma (19-10), Purdue (17-11), Vanderbilt (19-10) and USC (17-10). And if it hadn’t been them, it probably would’ve been teams like Michigan, Syracuse or West Virginia who just missed, or Texas Tech, which was in line for a bid before declaring two players ineligible and withdrawing from NCAA consideration just before the Big 12 Tournament. In fact, much of the attention after the selections were announced was on Syracuse & WVU both finishing with 11 wins in Big East and with 19 wins overall, the first Big East schools since 1982 to have those credentials and miss the field.
Two years after admitting it was impressed by a Manhattan team winning 25 games, the committee in 1997 made a clear decision to emphasize strength of schedule over winning. Committee chair and Virginia athletic director Terry Holland especially talked about “What did they do as a coach and athletic director to control the schedule you can control, the non-conference schedule?” There also was more talk of teams’ performance against the RPI top 100, as opposed to the top 150 as was sometimes mentioned in recent years before.
Oklahoma snuck in just over the fence for the second straight year, despite a middling performance in the Big 12. A 24-point blowout of fellow bubble team Purdue and two wins over NCAA 9 seed Colorado and Chauncey Billups were the main pluses, offsetting a mostly hideous non-conference schedule. Purdue got in-and with an 8 seed-off of a 12-6 mark in the Big Ten that came after a poor non-conference showing. The Boilermakers’ 22 RPI seemed a bit inflated for a team 6-10 against the top 50 but also just 8-11 vs. the top 100. Vanderbilt’s beefy 33 RPI belied a 2-8 mark against the RPI top 50.
Virginia played a typical ACC non-league schedule with some toughies mixed with regional picking over of the CAA and Big South. Strong as the ACC was, the Wahoos swung and missed in most of their chances against the top teams. In fact, Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim said of the Cavaliers: “They didn’t beat anybody. They just played in a (tough) league and got beat a lot. So I guess if you get beat a lot, that means you should be in the tournament.”
Georgetown posted the worst RPI (57) of any at-large team. USC was a surprise even to its coach. It sure looked like the Trojans got in mainly for tying for second in the Pac-10 with a 12-6 league record, because there was very little to the non-conference resume. And while home wins over Arizona, California and Stanford were nice, that coach Henry Bibby and his team did not get together and were scattered on Selection Sunday and didn’t even expect a bid said it all.
All of those teams had their bright spots and some quality wins, but all could’ve easily been left out, and may well have been the previous 3-4 years. If recognizing conference champions, Bowling Green or New Orleans were more deserving picks. Bowling Green under Jim Larranaga won at Purdue-which was deemed an 8 seed in the NCAAs even with a meek 17-11 record. BG also topped Mississippi State and Nebraska and had six losses by five points or less and not a single one by more than nine points. The Falcons tied Miami (Ohio) for the MAC title, and New Orleans similarly tied South Alabama for first in the Sun Belt. The Privateers also clobbered Tulane in their season opener and posted an overall outstanding record. In a time when the RPI noticeably began taking on increased importance, though, both teams’ ranks down in the 70s likely were the end of their chances.
If winning was the benchmark, Tulane won 20 games in a strong Conference USA, and was 5-3 against teams ranked as a 7 seed or higher in the NCAA field. The Green Wave also played a stiff non-league schedule that included Arizona, Butler, UNLV, New Orleans, Temple, Tulsa and Xavier. How USC’s season ever was thought better than Tulane’s that year will forever be one of the tourney’s all-time great selection mysteries. SW Missouri State also started 10-0 and won 24 games while finishing second in the Missouri Valley to an excellent Illinois State team, and the Bears held a good RPI (42) that teams like Bowling Green and New Orleans lacked. SMS was ragged on that year for its non-conference schedule, and it could have been better but did include wins over fellow bubble teams Bowling Green and Fresno State, both on a neutral court. The MVC was the 10th-ranked conference that year, but it almost sounded like Holland and the committee confused it with the MEAC or something, so harshly did they overstate its inferiority to the nine leagues above them. In fact, Holland said to the Kansas City Star that “they had a lot of wins and a good number of losses based on their strength of schedule. You can’t afford eight losses. You can’t lose more than four or five at the most.” Huh?
Texas also was just 16-11, but coach Tom Penders regularly played brutal non-conference schedules with the Longhorns (this year’s included five road games out of the Big 12, with trips to Arizona, Fresno State, Oregon State, Providence and Utah) and in fact Holland seemed he couldn’t gush enough holding up the Horns as an example for their schedule and noted their six top 50 wins as a reason to put them in. Much like John Chaney’s Temple teams of this era, it was hard to ever argue against Texas in the tourney with the gauntlet Penders annually put together in this era before mass scheduling collusion among conferences. Similarly, Massachusetts under Bruiser Flint played a monster non-conference schedule, meaning there was little to disagree with the Minutemen getting in with a 19-13 record.
The XXL-sized WAC (16 teams) put three teams in the field, and all received strong seeds (Utah as a 2, New Mexico with a 3 and Tulsa as a 5). The conference also had four teams with at least 20 wins to miss, though, including UNLV, WAC tourney finalist TCU, plus Pacific Division co-champs Hawaii and Fresno State. The Bulldogs lost to TCU by 25 in their WAC tourney opener, and in a time when coaches didn’t seem like professional lobbyists across the board yet, Bulldogs coach Jerry Tarkanian said of his team missing; “We weren’t passed over. We didn’t deserve this, not the way we played in the WAC Tournament. We played terrible. It would have been unfair if we had got one.”
1998
Last in: 10 Detroit (24-5), 10 Oklahoma (22-10), 10 Saint Louis (21-10), 10 West Virginia (22-8), 11 Miami (Fla.) (18-9), 11 Nebraska (20-11), 11 Washington (19-9), 11 Western Michigan (20-7), 12 Florida State (17-13)
Left out: UAB (20-11), Ball State (21-7), Colorado State (20-8), Dayton (20-11), Georgia Tech (17-13), Gonzaga (23-9), Hawaii (19-8), Iowa (20-10), Pacific (24-9), Southern Mississippi (22-10), Wyoming (19-8)
Multi-bid conferences: 11
After a heavy shift in favor of the top conferences the year before, the 1998 NCAA tourney selections showed something of a movement back towards the middle for the time being.
Eleven different leagues put at least two teams in the field, two more than the year before, and among them were the Mid-American Conference and the Midwestern Collegiate Conference, the group now known as the Horizon League which had a record three teams in the draw. This year’s tourney proved at-large access to teams in such leagues wasn’t impossible, it was just a lot tougher than when the committee was putting more weight on conference championships. And it would only get worse as the top conferences played more and more non-league games at home and against each other and got ever more proficient at avoiding teams from that next tier.
One of the more exciting tourneys of the 64-team era also saw perhaps two of the most stunning at-large picks of the decade, maybe ever. Florida State plucked the lowest at-large seed in despite a 17-13 overall mark, a 6-10 ACC record and going an awful 5-11 in its final 16 games. The Seminoles knocked off defending national champion Arizona in December and then 11th-ranked Connecticut in November, and those two wins apparently went a very long way. (The next best wins were over 15-13 Wake Forest and Big West champion Utah State) At a time when how teams finished was still of importance to the committee, FSU’s selection was questionable at best. Western Michigan, meanwhile, went 20-7 and tied for the Mid-American Conference West Division title, and the Broncos were a hot topic on ESPN all week before the selections but generally considered all but out after losing to No. 7 seed Miami (Ohio) in the MAC tourney quarterfinals. To the surprise of many, Western snuck into the field, though it was hardly a bad selection after early season wins over Michigan and UNC Charlotte teams that both wound up seeded in the top half of the bracket, plus two wins over the Eastern Michigan team that won the MAC Tournament.
Was it the powers of persuasion that got both teams in? The Orlando Sentinel noted that FSU athletic director Dave Hart played basketball at Alabama under committee chairman and Kentucky athletic director C.M. Newton, and that Hart wrote a letter to the committee detailing the Seminoles’ strengths and followed it up with phone calls to each of the nine committee members. Meanwhile, ESPN noted in the lead-up to the selections a booklet the MAC prepared on behalf of the Broncos it gave to the selection committee in hopes of persuading them on a team with a 59 RPI.
Incidentally, both Florida State and Western Michigan won their first round games in the NCAAs. Besides them, the most questionable selection was 18-9 Miami (Fla.), which rode a 12-1 start and an 11-7 mark in the Big East to its first bid since 1960. The Hurricanes went just 6-8 down the stretch, trading wins and losses their final 10 games. Miami did defeat three ranked teams in season and was the fifth team in what was a down Big East that included just four teams winning 20 games.
With the committee now heavily focused on non-conference scheduling, plus the RPI and numbers from it having become more prevalent, Detroit Mercy and Illinois-Chicago had similar seasons to earn at-large bids, UIC for the first time ever, Detroit for the first time since 1979. Both were impressive out of conference, took advantage of some golden opportunities in the years before major conference collusion in scheduling, and both were almost flawless in tying for their conference title until they happened to get tripped up in the MCC Tournament. Detroit won at Big Ten co-champ Michigan State and Iowa State, knocked off fellow bubble team Western Michigan, lost by a point at home against NCAA 3 seed Michigan and had a near miss at NCAA 2 seed Cincinnati. UIC (22-5) also defeated Michigan State-at home-lost by a point at Big Ten co-champ (NCAA 5 seed) Illinois and topped eventual MVC champion Illinois State. If some were surprised on Selection Sunday by these two Midwestern Collegiate Conference teams getting bids, they shouldn’t have been: both saw their RPIs hover in the 20s and 30s the second half of the season and were deserving selections. When Butler was a surprise winner of the MCC Tournament, the conference received three bids with UIC nabbing a 9 seed and Detroit a 10.
The Mid-American very well could’ve been a three-bid league too-in fact, Robyn Norwood of the Los Angeles Times said Ball State had the biggest gripe of any team not in the tourney. Indeed, the Cardinals defeated NCAA 8 seed Mississippi and topped MAC rival Western Michigan-twice. Ball State tied WMU for the MAC West title and the best record in the conference. Committee chair Newton said of the Cardinals: “Ball State was a real tough call,” but cited Western Michigan’s non-conference schedule as a deciding factor between the two teams.
Perhaps the difference was the Cardinals were down at 71 in the RPI. It was around this time when the RPI started becoming a well-known part of the selection process, but also a time when committee chairs were considerably more vague in their reasoning on selections than some were in years past. Coupled with the correlation frequently showing teams in the top 50 of the RPI were likely-but not guaranteed-to get in the tourney, those factors contributed to the mystery around the RPI that eventually led to it bringing out the irrational, jilted lover-like anger towards a simple rating formula that dominated in later years.
Iowa had the overall record, the Big Ten mark (10-8) and some resounding wins (nine in the Big Ten by double digits) that would’ve made many assume the Hawkeyes were in, except there was another thing: an RPI of 73 weighed down by a terrible non-conference slate. Newton even said of Iowa, “The schedule was a real factor. The message has been sent for a number of years, not one, two or three, but as long as I can remember.”
Wake Forest had the highest RPI of a team left out (35) and a few chirped about the Demon Deacons deserving a bid, but a 15-13 record should’ve made Wake an easy call. The Deacs finished 7-9 in the ACC; similarly, Vanderbilt was 7-9 in the SEC, and with a mostly light non-conference slate was not a surprise to be left out, though the Commodores did defeat fellow bubble team Nebraska. Hawaii got off to a terrific 11-1 start to the season that included a memorable win over second-ranked Kansas to claim the Rainbow Classic, plus victories over Indiana, Illinois State, BYU and Nebraska. The Rainbows struggled to a 3-6 start in WAC play, though, and were left out despite a 45 RPI and winning five straight to end the regular season before a loss at eventual champion UNLV in the WAC Tournament.
There also was one other then-little known team with an intriguing profile. Gonzaga opened the season defeating Tulsa, Mississippi State and then fifth-ranked Clemson to win the old Top of the World Classic. The Bulldogs also lost by two at Michigan State, by six at NCAA 11 seed Washington, and won the West Coast Conference regular season crown. The Zags also had two non-Division I wins, though, and had enough slip-ups to lose eight times in the regular season. That left them on the bubble after falling to San Francisco in the WCC tourney final, and a 68 RPI in a nutshell may have summarized the resume problems the Bulldogs were hurt by. Had Gonzaga gotten in, its current NCAA Tournament streak-21 years and going heading into the 2020 tourney-would be one year longer.
1999
Last in: 10 Miami (Ohio) (22-7), 10 Purdue (19-12), 11 George Washington (20-8), 11 Evansville (23-9), 12 UAB (20-11), 12 SW Missouri State (20-10), 13 Oklahoma (20-10)
Left out: California (17-11), DePaul (17-12), Fresno State (21-11), Kansas State (20-12), Mississippi State (20-12), Nebraska (19-12), Old Dominion (24-8), Rutgers (18-12), Toledo (19-9), Xavier (21-10)
Multi-bid conferences: 11
The 1999 NCAA Tournament was another real gem of the past 35 years. Connecticut won its first national title, while Gonzaga, Harold Arceneaux and Wally Szczerbiak were just some who made a name in that year’s tourney, then and forevermore.
Much like the year before, 11 different conferences put at least two teams in the Big Dance in 1999. Also much like the previous year, there was a surprising three-bid league, an inspired selection from the MAC, and a couple eye-opening selections as well.
The Missouri Valley was a three-bid conference this year for just the second time in its history as Evansville and SW Missouri State (now Missouri State) both were among the final five teams in. Evansville overcame a middling non-conference performance to win the regular season title in what was the No. 7-ranked league in the RPI. SMS, as it was known shorthand at the time, rode an early season win at Missouri and a strong RPI that trumped just a 9-8 finish to the regular season, as well as just a 1-7 mark against the RPI top 50 (per Jerry Palm’s collegerpi.com site), though that was countered by a 7-1 record vs. teams 51-100.
Oklahoma was the lowest seeded at-large team and the first 13 seed at-large since Manhattan in 1995. The low seed was surprising for a Big 12 team with three top 50 wins, but the Sooners also were just 5-9 against the top 100 and had 10 wins over teams ranked 151 or higher. George Washington made the field as a double-digit seed at-large for the fourth time in seven years; the Colonials also just missed a bid in 1995. Miami (Ohio) led by Szczerbiak made it two straight years for the Mid-American receiving an at-large bid; the league hasn’t had one since. UAB was the biggest surprise selection, though, as it slipped in despite few quality wins and losses to the eighth, ninth and 11th-place teams in Conference USA. The Blazers were 3-7 vs. the top 50, but just 4-8 against the top 100 and just 7-7 in their last 14 games, hardly distinguishing numbers. Dick Vitale questioned their selection, saying on ESPN “I just can’t see the logic of UAB, the way they finished, getting a bid over California, or maybe Toledo. How can you justify putting UAB over those two teams?”
If UAB was the biggest surprise, though, New Mexico was the most disputed. The Lobos infamously received an at-large bid this year-and a 9 seed-with a 75 RPI. The committee’s evaluation no doubt included some nuance. UNM played a hideous non-conference slate but clearly received extra credit because star Kenny Thomas missed the fall semester (due to settling his battle with the NCAA appealing his being declared ineligible as a freshman) and was injured in the WAC Tournament. New Mexico did beat NCAA tourney 4 seed Arizona in January; it also was blown out twice by WAC power Utah, but the Lobos did have the visibility of being ranked all season. Still, if Iowa was punished for a lousy non-conference schedule the year before, why not New Mexico? It’s not hard to understand why many thought that UNM athletic director Rudy Davalos being on the selection committee helped the Lobos more than a teensy-weensy bit.
Another school whose AD was on the committee was Minnesota, which bagged a 7 seed with a 17-10 record and an 8-8 mark in the Big Ten. The Golden Gophers’ seed could be questioned, though in fairness they were 5-7 against the top 50 and 13-10 vs. the top 100, per collegerpi.com. Also, fellow Big Ten member Iowa was a 5 seed with an 18-9 mark and just one game ahead of Minnesota in the standings. More notable, of course, is the Gophers were the subject of a St. Paul Pioneer Press investigative piece published the day before the tourney start alleging an academic counseling staffer wrote papers for more than 20 men’s basketball players. Four players were suspended the day before the tourney, and Minnesota ran into this unknown 10 seed named Gonzaga which won its first-ever NCAA Tournament game on the way to the Elite Eight and more than two decades of excellence since.
Mississippi also was a questionable selection-to say nothing of a 9 seed-with a 19-12 overall record that included three non-Division I wins plus a 51 RPI and losses in five of its last seven games down the stretch. Ole Mis did have five top 50 wins, though, and the truth was there weren’t a lot of superb candidates to take the Rebels’ place. Nebraska had an argument after defeating Kansas twice, but the Cornhuskers struck out in most of their other big chances, and a 2-4 finish including a 24-point loss to the Jayhawks was not good.
Rutgers appears it could be poised in 2020 to end an NCAA Tournament drought that dates back to 1991. Its best chance for a bid in that 29-year stretch was in 1999. The Scarlet Knights were right on the fence, but a 1-5 finish to the season certainly gave reason for the committee to look elsewhere, as did a 2-9 mark against the top 50. Xavier also was left out after going 12-4 in the Atlantic 10, but the Musketeers were underwhelming out of conference and after a 10-game winning streak midseason also struggled some down the stretch. A too-high RPI also told the story: the Musketeers were 70th on Selection Sunday.
Toledo got off to a 10-0 start including wins over eventual NCAA tourney teams George Mason, Kent State and Ohio State. The Rockets also had the RPI needed, were 3-1 vs. the RPI top 25 and even had Dick Vitale making their case, but a 9-8 finish to the season clearly kept them out, and three non-Division I wins didn’t help either. Mississippi State was essentially this year’s Iowa, a team with a solid win resume but a horrid non-conference schedule that led to their having a whopping 90 RPI despite 20 wins as an SEC team.
California and DePaul were two other teams considered very close (Newton said as much about the Blue Demons). Cal had three top 25 wins but was just 3-9 against the top 50, while DePaul was a classic good, not great team, with a 1-8 mark against the top 25 and just a 6-10 record against the top 100 overall. Old Dominion won 24 games, drilled NCAA 5 seed UNC Charlotte and lost to North Carolina by just two, but the Monarchs also lost three times to George Mason in finishing decisively second-best in the Colonial.
Coming Thursday: Part 4 looks at 2000-04
