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Tuesday, March 13
Game's the same; not everyone's sold
By Andy Katz
ESPN.com
DAYTON, Ohio. -- The only reason Winthrop and Northwestern State are playing Tuesday night instead of Thursday or Friday is the NCAA won't budge on the 34 at-large berths.
|  | | Winthrop practiced Monday like it was an NCAA Tournament game. |
Greed and selfishness, and the need to horde the at-large berths, resulted in something called the opening round game here. More appropriately, it should be called a play-in game for the right to be one of the four 16 seeds in the NCAA Tournament.
The NCAA membership and ultimately its board of directors -- not the selection committee -- decided that 34 was the magic number of at-large berths for the tournament. And, they allowed the Mountain West and WAC to receive automatic berths one year after the leagues split into a pair of eight-team leagues rather than one 16-team monster.
That meant 31 automatic berths to the NCAA Tournament. But with 34 at-large selections, there's a math problem with a 64-team field.
The result: Two teams were subjectively placed into a play-in game.
"They all get a share of tournament revenue," selection committee chair Mike Tranghese said. "The winner advances to the main body and gets to be at the same starting point as the other teams. The loser receives a share."
Tranghese said the best part of the play-in game is the opportunity for teams who deserve a bid, get to play in the tournament.
"We don't want to leave any conference out," Tranghese said. "We hope the loser will feel like they played in the NCAA Tournament. There will be things that go on that night where we hope we can accomplish our goals."
We won't know the answer until after the game if Winthrop or Northwestern State players and coaches say they were in the NCAA Tournament. But here are a few pregame issues at hand:
This game is supposed to be the 64th and 65th rated teams in the tournament. But if that's the case then this game should be in the East or the West. Either Duke or Stanford was the top seed in this tournament, not Illinois, the No. 1 seed in the Midwest.
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One Man's Idea
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"My feeling is this: If you're in the game and you're the 65th team then you're happy to be in the field. But the play-in terminology is upsetting to those in the game. Both teams won their way into the tournament. They've played their way into the tournament. Now you're talking about four games to get in to feel a part of the tournament. The NCAA is trying to not make it a play-in game, but that's what it is. Yes, you've got a chance to be in the game. We already played Winthrop so we wouldn't be in the game. There was definitely a relief from our players that we're not in that game.
"My solution to the problem is put two bubble teams in that game. Let the bubble teams play off to get into the tournament."
-- Fran McCaffrey, UNC Greensboro
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"There haven't been too many great 1-16 games over the years," Tranghese said. "Georgetown-Princeton in 1989 was a classic but the odds are against it. If Princeton was in the 65-64 game then you'd like to think they would have won it."
But the point is they had the chance. Should Northwestern State or Winthrop be denied the opportunity to play Illinois? Why should they have to play their way into a game against the Illini? All it would take is for the at-large berths to drop from 34 to 33. And, in the end, it might not take away from a high-major conference. There's a good chance that the 33rd at-large berth would or could have gone to a high-major school instead of a team like Creighton this year from a mid-major conference.
You can bet that the three other 16 seeds -- Hampton, Monmouth and UNC Greensboro -- are glad they're not in this game and get a chance, albeit unlikely, at hanging with a No. 1 seed even for 10 minutes.
If the NCAA Tournament believes that this is truly part of the field, then why is the game on TNN? Nothing against the The National Network, but every other game is on CBS.
Why isn't this game part of the same ticket package for the Dayton subregional? The tickets are cheaper so the NCAA can try to get more fans in the arena Tuesday night. On the first day of the tournament, fans from the respective schools can get into an afternoon and evening session with two games for the price of one ticket. Fans are only getting one game Tuesday night.
The NCAA has to be pleased with Winthrop coach Gregg Marshall. He's saying all the right things, most notably that there are 254 teams not playing while his squad is still in the postseason.
Winthrop forward Anthony Moore was realistic and said this gives the Eagles a chance to win an NCAA Tournament game.
But is it really a tournament game? We'll see if it has the feel of one between two teams trying to get to a No. 16 seed. The hope is that this becomes another conference tournament championship with the excitement of players running to center court if they win.
Marshall said the Eagles have a better chance of beating Northwestern State than beating Illinois. He agreed with Moore and said his team can claim to have won an NCAA Tournament game, something the school has never done.
If the NCAA record book puts down a 'W' for Winthrop Tuesday then so be it but Northwestern State will have been denied the chance to go out against a high-major team like Illinois, be at the press conference the day before when all of the teams are talking about themselves in front of the national media and get that one day of national exposure on CBS. Somehow, a Tuesday night when the first round of the NIT might get more airtime doesn't seem like a fair shake for a team that wants to be part of the NCAA Tournament.
What's a better story 10 years from now if you're on Northwestern State or Winthrop? That you beat one of the teams in a play-in game or you got a chance to take a one-point lead 10 minutes in against Illinois, even before you got waxed. The latter is a better read, if not a more memorable tale.
Andy Katz is a senior writer at ESPN.com.
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