Nantz-Packer

What a hissyfit Jim Nantz and Billy Packer threw during the CBS bracket telecast. According to Nantz-Packer, the Missouri Valley didn't deserve 4 teams in the tourney, when in reality they deserved 5 a lot more than they deserved 3. Air Force's inclusion left out Hofstra and Missouri State, both deserving teams, Missouri State even more so than Hofstra. ESPN analyst Pat Forde has some criticisms for their arguments.

The committee gave those conferences their chance (although the MVC will argue that Missouri State got hosed, earning distinction as the highest RPI team ever excluded; and the CAA will cry foul on behalf of Hofstra). But giving the little guys unprecedented access to the Big Dance led to a big backlash from the big network that writes the big check to the NCAA (not to mention other TV analysts who questioned whether the best 34 at-large teams were selected for the tournament field).

At least two of the complaints voiced by Nantz-Packer are poorly reasoned:

# That by giving four bids to the Missouri Valley and four to the Atlantic Coast Conference, the committee is saying the leagues are equal.

Clearly, by giving three top-four seeds to ACC teams and no top-six seeds to Valley teams, that's not what the committee is saying. The ACC is better at the top than the Valley, and everyone knows it. But the committee did say that the Valley's third and fourth teams are better than the ACC's fifth and sixth.

# Past NCAA performance by teams from power conferences dwarfs that of teams from leagues like the Valley, and should be kept in mind when issuing bids.

It's abundantly clear that teams from the ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-10 and SEC have done better than teams from the Valley, Colonial and other allegedly lesser leagues. But what Nantz and Packer left out was the fact that the best teams from those leagues always start out with higher seeds and weaker opponents.

Sure, the last six Valley entrants in the NCAAs have only won one game. They've also been seeded seventh, 10th, 14th, ninth, 11th and sixth in that time. Valley teams went 1-1 in games where it had the higher seed during that three-year span, and every loss was by single digits. If Southern Illinois losing by a point in 2003 as a No. 11 seed and by a point in '04 as a 9-seed reflects poorly on the Missouri Valley, that's a fairly merciless standard to apply.

And if Nantz-Packer had gone back to 2002, they'd see that the Valley went a combined 3-2 in the dance with teams coming from No. 11 and No. 12 seedings. (All three victories came against higher-seeded teams from power conferences, by the way.)

A metric I'd like to see is how the BCS conference schools have fared when they're seeded 8 and above. What Nantz-Packer did on that show was ludicrous and not unlike what my 1 year old daughters do when you take away their Cheeto's.