Add ACC commissioner John Swofford to the list of those who were disappointed that Virginia Tech was not selected to the NCAA tournament field.
"I'm surprised that Virginia Tech was excluded from the NCAA Tournament," Swofford said in a statement he released this afternoon. "I believe they are a quality team that earned and deserved to be in the field of 68."
In decisions that have prompted much controversy and criticism nationally, the Division I men's basketball committee awarded at-large NCAA tournament bids to Alabama-Birmingham and Virginia Commonwealth while leaving Virginia Tech and Colorado out of the tournament.
During the 15 days leading up to Selection Sunday, Virginia Tech (21-11) won at home over No. 1 regional seed Duke and defeated No. 10 regional seed Florida State in the ACC tournament. Colorado (20-13) swept three games against No. 5 regional seed Kansas State and defeated No. 4 regional seed Texas and No. 11 regional seed Missouri.
Virginia Commonwealth (23-11) posted top-50 wins over UCLA and Old Dominion, but didn't play an opponent ranked in the top 15 of the Ratings Percentage Index (RPI), which rates teams based on won-loss records and strength of schedule.
UAB (22-8) did not defeat an opponent ranked in the top 50 of the RPI.
The ACC placed just four teams (Duke, North Carolina, Florida State and Clemson) in the NCAA tournament, its lowest total since four teams reached the 2008 tournament. Virginia Tech has come agonizingly close to an at-large bid in 2008, 2010 and 2011, but fell short each timie.
"After the season they had," Swofford said, "I’m disappointed that the players don’t have the opportunity to compete in this year’s NCAAs.”
Gene Smith, the Ohio State athletic director who chairs the Division I men's basketball committee, provided only a vague comment about Virginia Tech's lack of nonconference wins when discussing the Hokies' omission from the field.
Ken Tysiac
Monday, March 14, 2011
Swofford disappointed with snub of Hokies
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10 comments:
Swofford would do better to spend his time on things he can control. #1 would be to improve ACC officiating by banning Karl Hess. Hess makes insanely bad calls in every game, but the charge in the first half of yesterday's championship has to be the capper to his career of shame:
1. Once a player goes airborne, as Strickland does, you must allow him the space to land. Singler doesn't.
2. You can't draw a charge when directly under the basket. Singler is directly under the basket.
3. You can't slide to create contact as Singler does.
4. You can't wave off a basket, regardless of whether the actual foul is a block or a charge, if the ball is released prior to the contact, which Strickland did.
Take a look at Singler's reaction after this call and even he knows he got the benefit of the worst call in the history of the ACC tournament:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mL1y8HoVtY0
Note: this isn't a "Carolina would have won the game if not for the refs" post - Duke clearly came out ready and played the game in the manner it was being called. This is a "Karl Hess is college basketball's worst referee and John Swofford can ensure he never works an ACC game again" post.
While this Carolina fan is only concerned with one lousy call, consider this. Th NCAA is certainly not concerned with the ACC - in fact it officially considers th ACC the worst major conference in basketball by only giving it 3 at large bids. While I think it is great for th ACC to promote the Duke-Carolina rivalry, the conference better hire someone to start aggressivly promoting the entire league so we can recruit the nations best players, build the conference back up, actually fill up an arena for the Tournament, etc. If this is not done soon, the ACC will lose its automatic BCS birth and be dismantled by the SEC in football, and the NCAA will evntually decide to invite only the winner of the ACC Tourney (alond with the winners of th Big 10 and a few select other conferences) to New York in March to join EVERY MEMBER of th Big East Conference for the "New Big East NCAA Championship Basketball Tournament."
Hey 9:32,
Which conference has won the last two national championships?
a. ACC
b. Big East
Which conference has won five of the last ten national championships?
a. ACC
b. Big East
Which conference has had more than two of its members win a national championship in the past ten years?
a. ACC
b. Big East
Which conference has won eight of the past twenty national championships?
a. ACC
b. Big East
The schools can promote themselves. The problem with the quality of play can we directed at the poor coaching of the players who do decide to attend other schools other than UNC and Duke. You can start with NCSU with Lowe (how many years does it take to become competitive)and Wake with their recent joke of a coaching hire. What star athletes are these guys going to land?
State had a Top 5 class last year. Your entire argument is now irrelevant?
Hey 10:10 (AKA ACC Shill),
9:32 was speaking in the new reality, while you wallow in the past. The Big East hasn't had 16 teams for the last 20 years. Since expansion, the ACC as a whole has become a total joke. The only good football programs are Va Tech and Florida St and the only good hoops programs are Duke and UNC.
I know this is hard for some of y'all to swallow, but outside of ACC country (which is NC, upstate SC and Virginia), nobody gives a flying flip and a half about the ACC. And with good reason. Outside of 2 programs, there is nothing for anyone to care about.
Instead of bawling, Swofford needs to start lighting fires under the butts of the 10 other ADs - stop playing Northwest-Central Louisiana Bayou School of Law & Agriculture during your non-conference schedule. Man up and play real teams. If you're good enough, you'll win enough to have a top 30 RPI and you won't have to sweat on selection Sunday.
Anon 7:53 PM,
You think you got it bad? Watch a few Charlotte 49ers and Atlantic 10 games next year. You have to pass a very intense idiot test to be deemed idiotic enough to be an A-10 ref.
You'll come away singing the praises of ACC refs.
A UNC fan complaining about a foul call to Swofford, another UNC fan, is about like a bank robber complaining about the coffee at a bank heist.
But he is right. ACC refs (that is a misnomer) are abysmal. They are at best incompetent or at worst biased for UNC or Duke.
Hey, knock UAB all you want (who did have a top-50 win in VCU, contrary to what your article states), but Clemson had 0 top 50 wins as well. That's really got to be mentioned in the article as well instead of acting like Clemson AND Va Tech should have gotten in. Va Tech got snubbed for Clemson for some reason. The ACC just isn't that good these days; there's no reason it won't come back around though.
Wow. I didn't know that Swofford knew there are other teams in the ACC besides UNC and Duke...
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