ESPN.com’s “bracketology” and others that predict only four Big 12 basketball teams will be selected to the men’s NCAA Tournament are causing the league’s coaches to cry foul.
Joe Lunardi, an employee of Saint Joseph’s University, updates his bracketology for ESPN.com on a frequent basis. He has Kansas State topping the list of best teams that will be left out.
Kansas State enters this week’s Big 12 Tournament in Oklahoma City at 21-10 overall and 10-6 in conference play.
“We’re talking about a team that needs to win a game in our conference tournament and they’ve already got 10 wins? Give me a break,” Texas A&M coach Billy Gillispie said Monday during the weekly Big 12 teleconference with the media.
Lunardi, who in the past six years has missed only one team in his final bracket projection, currently includes seven teams from the Atlantic Coast Conference and Big East and six from the Big Ten and Pac-10.
“I’m really disappointed in the way people are perceiving our league,” Gillispie said. “I think our league doesn’t do as good a job as our competitors do as far as marketing.”
“You can’t really politick it,” Texas coach Rick Barnes said. “But it bothers me when people talk (glowingly) about another conference with teams jumbled in the middle. It bothers me that people don’t give our league credit.”
Lunardi projects Kansas to be a No. 1 seed, Texas A&M a No. 2, Texas a No. 4 and Texas Tech a 10th seed.
Big 12 commissioner Kevin Weiberg defended the efforts of his publicity office. A former chairman of the NCAA Tournament selection committee, Weiberg also said he could not recall an instance when a team was picked over another because it had been promoted more vigorously.
“I understand that frustration and share it,” Weiberg said of unfavorable bracket projections. “But I do think that you have to, at some point, feel like the (selection) process is going to take care of some of that.”
Silas sitting out
The Big 12 office ruled the first- half incident Saturday between freshman guards Xavier Silas of CU and Ryan Anderson of Nebraska to be a “flagrant technical foul for a fighting act” against both players and therefore they were suspended for one game under NCAA rules. There is no appeal for fighting acts.
Silas, CU’s second-leading scorer (12.0 points per game), will not play Thursday in the Buffs’ Big 12 Tournament opener against Texas Tech. Anderson served his suspension Monday night in Nebraska’s makeup game against Oklahoma State.
Come on down
Departing CU coach Ricardo Patton has been invited to visit two colleagues, Texas’ Barnes and Texas Tech’s Bob Knight, after the Buffs’ season ends. Patton accepted their offers.
“Those guys have been great in support of me and the job we’ve done,” Patton said. “I’m going to spend some time with different people basketballwise and sit in on a couple of practices and seek employment myself.”
Footnotes
For the first time in the 11 years of the Big 12, six teams have 20 or more victories. Missouri (18-11) could make it seven with a run in the Big 12 Tournament. … None of the 10 previous Big 12 Tournaments was won by a team that had to play in the first round. The top four seeds receive byes.
Tom Kensler can be reached at 303-954-1280 or tkensler@denverpost.com.
