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Sunday, March 02, 2003

By Josh Barr, The Washington Post

When the NCAA men's basketball tournament field is unveiled in 16 days, the customary clamor over who receives the final invitations promises to be even more intense than usual. After 31 conference champions claim automatic berths, the selection committee has to fill the rest of the 65-team field with at-large bids, prompting the question: Does anyone out there deserve one?

Many of the traditional top conferences seem to lack their usual depth as the regular-season play winds down, but some of the mid-level leagues appear to have more than one competitive team as conference tournaments begin Tuesday.

So much of the selection committee's debate will pit the schools such as Southern Illinois or Wisconsin-Milwaukee against fifth- or sixth-place teams such as Seton Hall or Alabama, which has fallen hard since being ranked No. 1 for the first time in school history two months ago. And whoever gets left out almost surely will feel robbed.

"It's shaping up to make it probably one of the most difficult ones of all, at least since I've been on the committee," said the Citadel Athletic Director Les Robinson, in his fifth year on the selection committee.

"I just think several things have kicked in at one time to create truly the greatest parity we've had in college basketball. Parity means there are more teams of equal ability, equal strength and there becomes a finer line ... between 65 and 85. ... Ten years ago, there was a different line you could draw of haves and have nots. Now that line is much lower. There are much more teams in the haves."

When the 10 committee members gather in an Indianapolis hotel March 12, one of their first tasks might be easier than normal. Before going to sleep that night, each member will submit a list of teams he or she feels belong in the tournament without discussion. If a team appears on at least all but two of the eligible members' lists -- members are not permitted to vote on schools they represent -- that team is placed in the 65-team field. A casual estimate shows at least 26 teams from eight conferences are likely to be in this group, though some of these teams surely will win their conference tournaments and an automatic berth.

Awarding the rest of the bids, however, promises to be more contentious. The list of teams meriting consideration is seemingly longer than ever, though all of their cases have holes. Each is sitting around the same poker table hoping the low pair in its hand is good enough to win.

Consider the situation in four of the six "power" conferences:

The Pacific-10 is No. 1 Arizona and everybody else. The next team in the national rankings is No. 19 Stanford, which is 21st in the Ratings Percentage Index, a formula that is one of the factors considered by the selection committee.

Michigan, under self-imposed penalty of not playing in the NCAA tournament, led the Big Ten for much of the season until a 31-point loss Wednesday at Wisconsin. No. 18 Illinois is the conference's highest-ranked team and is 25th in the RPI.

After producing the past two national champions and having two No. 1 seeds last season, the ACC will be fortunate to have a No. 2 seed this year and might only get three teams in the tournament. Maryland, Duke and Wake Forest are certain picks, but five other teams -- North Carolina, North Carolina State, Virginia, Clemson and Georgia Tech -- have failed to make convincing arguments so far.

Meantime, the 14-team Big East might put just four teams in the tournament, leaving the Southeastern and Big 12 conferences to each pick up perhaps a half-dozen bids or more.

"It was kind of like this last year," said Jerry Palm, who operates the Web site, www.collegerpi.com, and is an expert on the selection process, predicting all but two of the at-large berths over the past three seasons.

"There were five teams in last year's field that most other years would not have gotten in. It's like that again this year. There is a lot of mediocrity in the middle of some of these leagues. The whole Big Ten, other than Illinois, looks like they're on the bubble."

Where will the other teams come from? The Atlantic 10, which did not earn an at-large berth last season, seems to have three teams that have ensured places for the tournament: Xavier, Saint Joseph's and Dayton. Conference USA likely will place four teams in the tournament, which would match its all-time high.

There also seems to be more of a chance for teams such as Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Butler of the Horizon League, Creighton and Southern Illinois of the Missouri Valley Conference and perhaps a few other members of mid-level conferences to be considered for at-large bids.

Last season, Butler was 25-4 in the regular season but lost to Wisconsin-Green Bay in the first round of the conference tournament. With an RPI of 77 and only one non-conference game against another NCAA tournament team -- a 66-64 victory against Indiana -- the Bulldogs were not extended an at-large invitation.

How sensitive is Butler about trying to avoid a repeat of that situation?

Coach Todd Lickliter declined an interview request, saying through a team spokesman that he did not want to say anything that could be misinterpreted or in any way hurt his team's chances of earning a bid this season. The Bulldogs are 22-4 and have an RPI of 40, but their best non-conference victories are against Saint Louis and Western Kentucky.

Aware of the possibility for their top teams to be upset in the conference tournament and to then be passed over by the selection committee, a handful of lower-level conferences have taken steps to try to protect their best teams. In the nine-team Horizon League and the eight-team West Coast Conference, the top two seeds receive byes into the semifinals, as does the top seed in the 10-team Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference.

While the madness is about to ratchet up, George Washington Athletic Director Jack Kvancz -- in his fifth and final year on the committee -- cautioned that it's too early to begin predicting the tournament field and discussing its strengths or weaknesses.

"I seriously think, and I mean this sincerely, anybody who screws around with anything before the season is over this year is really screwed up," Kvancz said. "This is a year where I think it is very, very dangerous and very, very time-wasting to do a whole heck of a lot because a lot of things are still out there: number one, who the 65 are; and number two, where you're seeding them."