While bracket-crazed college basketball fans may consider Selection Sunday to be the start of “March Madness,” coaches begin to lose sleep earlier in the month.
Conference tournaments can become make-or-break as well. At the very least, their results can influence seeding for the NCAA Tournament.
For the dozen or so teams with bubble trouble, an early exit during a league tournament can burst all hope.
One of those teams is Colorado State, which began the weekend with 25 victories and an impressive RPI rating of 28. But the Rams aren’t taking anything for granted, nor should they.
Two of the most nationally recognized “bracketologists,” ESPN’s Joe Lunardi and ‘s Jerry Palm, both listed Colorado State as a No. 11 seed after the Rams’ victory Wednesday night at Nevada. USA Today was more confident about CSU’s prospects to earn an NCAA Tournament bid for the third time in four years, slotting the Rams as a No. 9 seed.
“There’s a lot out there,” CSU senior Daniel Bejarano said, “but we can’t afford to look past the next game.”
In addition to the erroneous perception that conference tournament results carry more weight, here are three other common misconceptions about the selection process:
Conference RPI. Go ahead and look at any ranking of conferences for entertainment purposes if you must, but be aware that it is not considered by the selection committee. For the 36 at-large invitations, the committee evaluates teams on their own merit. No bonus points are awarded for being a member of a higher-ranked conference.
Final 10 games. Several years ago, the selection committee threw out any reference to how teams finish.
Slots per conference. Fans like to talk about how many bids this or that league will be awarded. In reality, it’s the other way around. The committee selects at-large teams individually. Granted, the media will be quick to add them up by conference after the bracket is revealed. But committee members are not concerned about whether, say, one league may be perceived as getting too many bids and another too few.
As for the conference tournaments, there are plenty of reasons to watch. At least one No. 1 seed is up for grabs, perhaps two. Kentucky and Virginia are locks to be a No. 1 seed, and possibly Duke, too.
But the biggest story line this week will be the fate of “bubble” teams.
Teams that had better not lay an egg or need to pull some upsets to assure selection include Colorado State and Boise State (Mountain West); Stanford and UCLA (Pac-12); Indiana, Illinois and Purdue (Big Ten); Texas (Big 12); Texas A&M and LSU (SEC); Temple (American Athletic); Davidson (Atlantic 10) and others.
Let the Madness begin.
Tom Kensler: tkensler @denverpost.com or tomkensler
