The selection committee released the bracket for the NCAA Men’s Tournament on Sunday and there were certainly some surprises.
The Big East, long known as a powerhouse college basketball conference, got only three teams in the tournament, its fewest since the conference realigned after the 2013 season.
Marquette head coach Shaka Smart attempted to make sense of the lack of Big East in the big dance.
“It was a perfect storm numbers-wise in our league,” Smart said on CBS Sports. “You had UConn having the best year ever of any Big East team. And then you had DePaul probably having the worst year ever.
“That affected those teams in the middle.”
Smart is spot on with his analysis of both UConn and DePaul.
The Huskies went 18-2 in conference play, the most Big East wins a team has ever had, and, on the flip side, DePaul went winless, 0-20, in conference play, the most losses by a team ever.
DePaul fired coach Tony Stubblefield in January and hired Chris Holtman last week to take over the beleaguered basketball program.
Seton Hall, though, beat UConn back in December, and all the Big East bubble teams took care of business against DePaul.
UConn, the reigning national champions and now Big East Tournament champions, is the No. 1 overall seed in the tournament. They’ll play in the East region.
Marquette is a No. 2 seed in the South region and Creighton is the No. 3 seed in the Midwest.
However, some feel that a few Big East teams were snubbed from the tournament.
St. John’s, Seton Hall and Providence were all on the bubble but the committee shunned them.
Providence head coach Kim English voiced his displeasure with the committee’s decisions.
“I think the analytics are bulls–t,” English told reporters. “I think you could schedule bad teams in your non-league and beat the snot out of them and beat them by 50 and 60. I think coaching for so long has been a gentleman agreement. I mean, you have a large lead at the end of the game, for health reasons you take guys out, to get some other guys opportunities to play you take guys out.
“But right now might be a change in college basketball. We’re scheduling to beat teams by 40 and 50. [It] might be a thing to do, but when you get into this league, the analytics aren’t going to look very good in league. You’re playing against some really, really good coaches.”
The selection committee instead put Boise State, Colorado, Virginia and Colorado State in as the last four teams in.
Seton Hall was listed as the second team out of the NCAA Tournament, meaning St. John’s and Providence weren’t even truly a factor.
