This is the storyline that the fawning sports media and punditry has missed but will catch up to eventually.
Whether State should have gotten in or not is beside the larger point. As some others pointed out in the other thread, when the Selection Committee talks about a team being "fun," then that might be indicative of a problem. But what do you expect?
They chose to put at-large teams in the tournament ranked 55, 56, 63 and 73. When you do that, what is your objective standard?
If you don't think that is a problem, consider this? When the RPI was the primary metric, what is the worst RPI ranking that ever earned an at-large birth? What was the biggest RPI differential between the team ranked highest that didn't get in and the team ranked lowest that did?
My guess is that the lowest RPI at-large was in the low to mid-40s and the differential was always less than -10 and that only one or very rarely two teams benefitted from such a differential in any year, not four.
Whether State should have gotten in or not is beside the larger point. As some others pointed out in the other thread, when the Selection Committee talks about a team being "fun," then that might be indicative of a problem. But what do you expect?
They chose to put at-large teams in the tournament ranked 55, 56, 63 and 73. When you do that, what is your objective standard?
If you don't think that is a problem, consider this? When the RPI was the primary metric, what is the worst RPI ranking that ever earned an at-large birth? What was the biggest RPI differential between the team ranked highest that didn't get in and the team ranked lowest that did?
My guess is that the lowest RPI at-large was in the low to mid-40s and the differential was always less than -10 and that only one or very rarely two teams benefitted from such a differential in any year, not four.
