A Final Word on Syracuse...

Closing the books on the Syracuse NCAA snub before I'm officially "over it" and move on to enjoying what should be a fantastic tournament.

This was my least favorite Syracuse team since Todd Burgan's senior year. This senior class (one Sweet 16, two First Round losses and an NIT bid) grossly underachieved their entire time at Syracuse and in key games this season. They let teams back into games towards the end of the first half several times and they blew big leads late in games. All in all, they were a very frustrating team to watch.

That said, they were one of more than a handful of frustrating teams across the country. Some teams that were brought from "The Bubble" to the tournament had just a .500 conference record (Purdue), or fewer than 20 wins (Stanford), or a .500 record in their last 10 games and a losing record in road/neutral games (Indiana). Syracuse had a +.500 record in what is believed to be (by those outside the committee) a tougher conference than Purdue's, four more wins than Stanford, went 7-3 since they were put on "The Bubble" (meaning 7-3 in "must-win" games, like the tournament is) and at least managed to go .500 on the road and in neutral sites.

The committee contradicts itself in this tournament's field when it reveals the seeds as some teams with lower RPIs are seeded higher than teams with higher RPIs teams that won good conference tournaments are given the same seed as some of the "last teams in".

There are five one seeds in this tournament as the committee chose pretty much not to choose on UCLA giving them a 2 seed with 1 seed privileges. Gary Walters, chairman of the committee tipped his hand when he admitted that Niagara was put in the play-in game because they were sympathetic to what the perception would be if two predominantly black colleges were put in the play-in game. Seems the committee was sympathetic to other perceptions besides that.

Drexel and Syracuse were linked all year because of Drexel's win over Syracuse in the Carrier Dome in December. Old Dominion and Drexel were believed to be a decision the committee would have to make because they were in the same mid-major conference. Old Dominion, having beaten Drexel twice would be a controversial choice to be left out in Drexel's favor. In the mind of the committee leaving out Drexel and including Syracuse would've been a P.R. disaster, and they are probably right on that. There wasn't enough room for Old Dominion, Drexel, and Syracuse.

The appearance is the committee decided to circumvent the Old Dominion, Drexel, Syracuse controversy by only including the one team without a loss to the other two, Old Dominion and putting one of the other suspect bubble teams in.

Syracuse is an easy snub as they are the anti-Drexel, a big school who doesn't schedule tough road games early in the season, but whenever you leave out the 5th place team in the Big East, you are going to create controversy and Gary Walters and the members of the committee should not be as suprised as they seem to be that Syracuse was a controversial omission.

In closing, neither Syracuse or Drexel had an National Championship trophy snatched from their hands by this decision and I am grateful that the controversies in College Basketball are nowhere near the stakes of its older brother, Football.

I still can not wait for one of my favorite times of the year, the NCAA Tournament.

I will take this time to credit Syracuse.com's College Basketball Blog as an invaluable resource for many of my Syracuse posts over the past few weeks. It has become my new favorite way to follow the Orange from afar.