Former Missouri star Kim English ranks among the most aggrieved college basketball coaches this week.
His tenure at Providence for off to an outstanding start, with a 21-13 finish, but it didn't produce an NCAA Tournament berth.
The Friars, along with Big East rivals St. John’s and Seton Hall, got snubbed by the tournament selection committee after several other conference tournament upsets reduced the number of at-large berths available to bubble teams.
That put a spotlight on the selection process and the metrics used to grade teams.
“I think the analytics are (BS),†English told reporters. “I think you could schedule bad teams in your non-league and beat the snot out of them and beat them by 50 and 60. I think coaching for so long has been a gentleman agreement. I mean, you have a large lead at the end of the game, for health reasons you take guys out, to get some other guys opportunities to play you take guys out.
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“But right now might be a change in college basketball. We’re scheduling to beat teams by 40 and 50. [It] might be a thing to do, but when you get into this league, the analytics aren’t going to look very good in league. You’re playing against some really, really good coaches.â€
Big Ten, Big 12, Southeastern Conference and Mountain West teams beat up on each other in league play, but they still sent big contingents to the Big Dance.
So what happened to the Big East?
“It was a perfect storm numbers-wise in our league,†Marquette coach Shaka Smart told CBS Sports. “You had UConn having the best year ever of any Big East team. And then you had DePaul probably having the worst year ever.
“That affected those teams in the middle.â€
That mystified Seton Hall coach Shaheen Holloway after his 20-12 team didn't get the call.
“Super disappointed, super shocked,†Holloway told reporters after his team was snubbed. “Can’t believe that a team that won 13 games in the supposedly the second-best conference in the country numbers-wise don’t make it. I don’t think I’ve ever been a part or seen anything like that.â€
Seton Hall accepted at trip to the National Invitational Tournament as a consolation prize, but Providence and St. John’s said no thanks. So did Pittsburgh, which suffered a dooming loss to Missouri at home in the ACC/SEC Challenge.
Oklahoma, Memphis, Ole Miss and Indiana also begged off. The NCAA tried to pump up the NIT by changing the selection process for the event – at the expense of mid- and low-major leagues – but that effort failed.
Many major college coaches who missed out on the NCAA Tournament preferred to get busy preparing for next season via the transfer portal rather than extending this season.
Writing for USA Today, Dan Wolken had this take:
A decade ago, this would have been unthinkable. If you got snubbed by the NCAA selection committee, you sucked it up and played. Maybe you mailed it in, but you played.Â
Little by little, though, the culture around these consolation prizes has changed.
We have seen it in college football, where many teams struggle to put a representative product on the field for bowl games because of how many players opt out or transfer the moment the regular season ends. And now we’re seeing it in basketball, which has made the NIT seem completely optional and secondary to where the real action is this week: The transfer portal.Â
While the NCAA has no choice but to reduce transfer restrictions to almost nothing thanks to the litany of lawsuits it’s fighting, somebody had the bright idea to open up the transfer portal Monday. In effect, that means free agency has already started. And at that point, human nature is going to take over for a lot of players who are far more invested in their next team than the one they’ve been on for the last year.Â
With so many teams refusing to play, the Missouri Valley Conference got Bradley in the NIT along with Indiana State, which became one of the event’s top seeds after getting stiffed by the NCAA Tournament selection committee.
THE BASKETBALL DIARIES
Here is what folks are writing about March Madness:
Isaac Trotter, 247 Sports: “Illinois surged up to secure the last No. 3 seed, and Brad Underwood will not be complaining about this draw. A date with Morehead State is up first, and the Eagles struggled mightily with the three best high-major clubs it played. No. 6 seed BYU plays some of the most high-variance games in the country because of its reliance on the 3-ball. Over 50% of BYU’s shots are 3s, and Illinois’ defense relies heavily on limiting 3-point attempts. BYU’s leaky transition defense should offer Terrence Shannon Jr.  some free runs to the tin. BYU allows teams to shoot over 64% at the rim. That won’t fly against an aggressive, enormous Illini lineup that lives at the rim. Illinois’ elite offense against Iowa State’s elite defense would be an insane stylistic clash in the Sweet 16, but Illinois carved Northwestern’s defense twice. Why is that important? Iowa State, like Northwestern, loves to trap the post early and often.â€
Dana O’Neil, The Athletic: “Had we been paying attention, we might have seen this coming. On the first day of the season, James Madison upset fourth-ranked ranked Michigan State, officially pushing the 2023-24 season off the rails. In the first seven weeks, four different teams held the No. 1 ranking. The overall No. 1 in the tournament — UConn — didn’t ascend to the top until Week 11. So, fittingly, on the last two days of the regular season, all hell broke loose. A Stanford transfer hit a buzzer-beating banked 3-pointer to force overtime and send NC State into the ACC tournament final; and then the Wolfpack, and their heat-feeling coach, went out and won the thing. Not to be outdone, Duquesne, Oregon and UAB won their conference tournaments, creating unprecedented bubble-popping, and not of the champagne variety. Three of the eventual No. 1 seeds all lost in their conference tournaments. Mississippi State ostensibly ran Tennessee off the 1-seed line, and Iowa State simply ran Houston out of the gym.â€
Myron Medcalf, : “A year ago, Tucker DeVries -- son of coach Darian DeVries -- battled eventual Final Four team Miami in the first round of the NCAA tournament. He returned to Drake this season and has gotten better, now shooting 38% from 3 in Missouri Valley play. This Drake team, overall, is different from last year's group: It has more gaps on defense, but it's more efficient offensively. This explains how the Bulldogs managed to beat Nevada by 19 points earlier this season and lost just one game after Feb. 3.”
David Cobb, : “McNeese beat VCU, UAB and Michigan on the road by double digits before running through the Southland Conference without much resistance. The Cowboys are coached by former LSU coach Will Wade, who is on a redemption tour after his tenure with the Tigers ended in 2022 amid an NCAA investigation. This team is ruthlessly efficient on offense and forces significantly more turnovers than it commits. With a handful of former power conference players in the rotation — led by ex-TCU guard Shahada Wells — McNeese won't be awestruck by Gonzaga. If the Cowboys do pull an opening-round upset, a second-round date with a struggling Kansas team may await. The Jayhawks aren't their usual selves, and neither is Gonzaga, which makes this a manageable path for McNeese.”
Joe Lunardi, : “The Mountain West was appropriately downgraded (in terms of seeding) for the vast majority of its Quadrant 1 wins coming in conference play. There is clearly an understanding that individual NET numbers were a bit inflated in an otherwise excellent conference. The Atlantic 10 got very good seeds for both its at-large team (7-seed Dayton) and its automatic qualifier (11-seed Duquesne). For the league's seventh-place finisher to get an 11-seed in the Big Dance tells me the league is well on its way to more bids in the future.”
Kyle Boone, : “There's always a chance for madness in March, but the odds of mayhem feels particularly high in the South Regional, which makes picking this bracket tricky. No. 1 seed Houston is the betting favorite to emerge from the bracket and land in the Final Four, but this pod is stacked with stars from the likes of Duke, Kentucky, Marquette and Nebraska, positioning a potential dark horse to emerge from this regional . . . I won't go as far as to lobby against Houston, but for my money, Duke and Kentucky -- the No. 3 and No. 4 seed in this regional, respectively -- got excellent draws and will be trendy picks to come out of this regional. There's also No. 2 seed Marquette quietly lurking at the bottom of the bracket with star guard Tyler Kolek, the NCAA's leader in assists per game who missed all of the Big East Tournament with an oblique injury, expected to return to action this week.”
MEGAPHONE
“Give your players and coaches a chance to keep coaching and playing, and don’t short change. If a guy doesn’t want to play, go sit down. If a coach doesn’t want to coach, go recruit. But there’s gotta be enough people to put five, six, seven people on the floor and go play. Makes absolutely zero sense to me.â€
Former college coach Tom Crean, on teams refusing to play in the NIT.