Insert snappy 'Butler did it' headline here

We’ve been over the mid-major oxymoron on these pagesplenty of times in the past, so let’s just say that Butler snapping up a spot in the Final Four in a region that featured Syracuse in the top seed was kind of a surprise.

Actually, the real surprise is that Butler was a No. 5 seed, beat the Nos. 1 and 2 seeds back-to-back and had its toughest game in the tournament against No. 13 Murray State.

In other words, the selection committee really messed up the seeding this year.

Hey, it happens from time to time. After all, the chalk pretty much ran through to the bracket the past several years. Last year the top 12 teams made it to the Sweet 16, while in 2008 all the No. 1 seeds got to the Final Four. In fact, over the past two seasons Villanova, as a No. 3, was the worst-seeded team to get to the Final Four.

The committee got it right in 2008 and 2009.

That wasn’t the case in 2010 where three double-digit seeds plus No. 9 Northern Iowa got to the Sweet 16 and a No. 5 or No. 6 seed is guaranteed to make it to the championship game.

Wha’ happened?

One theory is that the selection committee didn’t give much respect to those mid-majors. Butler, obviously, is the prime example of that elitist point-of-view. Seeing as there was no team that was head-and-shoulders above the rest, a team like Butler was given a No. 5 seed even though its RPI ranking was just tenths of points behind Villanova.

Since Butler was 20-0 in the Horizon Conference and Villanova was 13-6 in the Big East, the committee reasoned that the big conferences were infinitely better than the mid-majors and ranked the teams accordingly. That kind of makes sense, right? If ‘Nova and Butler produce the same computer rankings, then the so-called major team would chew up those mid-majors, went the logic.

The problem with that is statistics always lie. Never is there a case were 13-6 is better than 20-0. Never, ever, never. A 20-0 team experiences things that a 13-6 club never goes through, such as how to win games. Winning counts for a lot when its humans and not statistics calling the shots.

Didn’t we learn anything from Larry Bird and Indiana State all those years ago? Did we really need to watch No. 10 St. Mary’s pull apart Villanova like a sadistic kid on the playground torturing a defenseless insect with a magnifying glass? Sure, St. Mary’s had the 35^th best RPI and was 25-5, but they had something Villanova did not—a legit center.

So painting Butler and teams of its ilk as mighty little underdogs fighting against the monoliths is wrong. Butler isn’t a David in the battle against Goliath, nor is it a mom-and-pop shop slaying Wal-Mart before it gets crushed and the organic nature of a downtown is destroyed. Actually, the mid-majors are just that…

Mid-majors.

They are like the regional chain with shops across the region that takes a chunk out of Wal-Mart's market share. Sure, more people shop at Wal-Mart or Target or Starbucks, but that isn't putting Giant or Acme out of business. Not by a long shot.

The madness is about the money

“As soon as you come to terms that it’s all about the money and that merit often does not matter, then your frustration will subside.”

That’s what a psychologist friend told me the other day when we were just chatting about life and basketball. We tend to talk a lot about those subjects, but this time we both were particularly down and whiny.

Of course these things about "the way it is" are subjects that I already knew much about and had come to terms with, but it’s always does the soul good to hear it from someone with some true knowledge. No, it didn’t make it feel any better to know that essentially people who have to work for a living are nothing more than a number on some Excel spreadsheet. But whatever...

Yadda, yadda, yadda.

Actually, that goes for the people associated with basketball teams that play in the NCAA, too. In a bottom line driven world, there are none shallower than the folks who run the NCAA basketball tournament. If we have learned anything through the years it’s that the feudal system is still at play in the United States and the overlords are the guys who run college sports.

This is not to say the NCAA Tournament isn’t a great event. Far from it. In regard to sports playoff systems—both professional and amateur—it’s tough to top the annual basketball tournament the NCAA puts on for its top Division I teams. Each team is assigned a spot on a grid that corresponds directly to its strength in the field, a venue and a game time are decided upon and the players are given a ball to hash it out.

It can’t get any purer than that.

And as long as no one peaks behind the curtain than no one will be the wiser. Actually, the selection committee is kind of like how author Eric Schlosser describes the meat industry in his book, “Fast Food Nation” and the people will close their eyes and open their mouths for anything as long as they aren’t told how the animals are slaughtered.

In this case it’s how the teams are chosen. Look, every year someone or some group is disappointed about being left out or underrated. It’s a cliché at this point because it happens, every single year.

But that doesn’t make it right. Since there is no oversight or even direct knowledge of how the process comes together, it seem OK to assume that teams are placed in the venue and in a matchup that will get the most money for the NCAA. That’s fine as long as it’s explicit. The trouble is it is not. Just like the NCAA wants to make billions off the backs of teenagers playing a game in exchange for free classes and room and board, I’d love to know how the NCAA selection committee arrived at the fact that Temple is only good enough for a No. 5 seed in its tourney and Villanova is a No. 2.

Perhaps I’d even ask why some of the so-called “mid-majors” were left out when they very well might play more entertaining basketball than a “major” school team, but I already know the answer. Though perennial powers like UCLA, Connecticut, Arizona, Indiana and defending national champion North Carolina, are out of it this year, the committee chose to bump up the prestigious basketball schools instead of giving others at some marquee matchups.

The NCAA hears the complaints and brushes it off as one would expect, saying there are complaints every year and the tournament is always good. Still, that’s not the point. Apparently Toyota made a quality, affordable and an efficient car until the brakes stopped working on a few of them. What if the CEO of the car company said, “Yeah, I know the brakes don’t work, but look at the wax job on that thing… It’s sparkly!”

The NCAA basketball tournament is as shiny as the most precious diamond, but beauty has its price and no one is going to watch a basketball game just because it’s exciting. Oh no, people are far too shallow to figure out on their own what is good or not. That’s where the NCAA selection committee comes in with acronyms like RPI and formulas for measuring the strength of a team’s schedule or its quality wins. For instance, Temple finished the season as the top team in the Atlantic 10 conference and won the tournament championship for the third year in a row. That’s a pretty impressive feat and when coupled with an RPI ranking as the No. 8 team in the country, Temple should be looking at a No. 2 seed at best and a No. 3 at worst.

Right?

Conversely, Villanova checked in as the No. 4 best team in the Big East, a one-game exit from the conference tourney and an RPI of 11. Based on that, the best-case scenario puts Villanova as a No. 3 seed or a comfortable No. 4.

That was easy… or was it.

Well, it’s easy until the intangibles are factored in. Stray too far from North Broad Street and there aren’t too many people who can name a single player on the Temple team. Hell, most folks probably believe John Chaney is still the coach of the team and only know him as the guy who wanted to strangle John Calipari.

Meanwhile, Villanova got to the Final Four last season by winning one of the most exciting games of the tournament. Plus, coach Jay Wright is as genuine, stylish and as affable as they come in college basketball and his top player, Scottie Reynolds, is one of the all-time greats for a school with a proud basketball tradition. He’s been written about in Sports Illustrated and everything. Maybe that’s why a lot of the top college basketball pundits say Villanova will get to the Final Four on a route that is not nearly as difficult as last season.

So is this starting to make sense now? And if it is why do we even bother with things like RPI and strength of schedule and all of those other crazy metrics? Why not start with UCLA, Kentucky, North Carolina, Kansas and Duke and set it up around those teams? Then, if those teams are having a bad year, just bump up the second class or the better teams from whichever glamour conference (Big East, ACC, Big Ten, SEC or Pac-10) is playing well.

See, there doesn’t need to be all this frustration and depression about wrong and right. They already sold all the commercial time so just close your eyes and open up wide.

Reynolds a blast from the past

Spend 10 years writing exclusively about baseball and it’s easy to get lost about the goings on in other sports. There is only so much one guy can do to keep up with the full range of games, but when it gets right down to it sometimes all a guy can do is focus on what is in front of him.

Over the past decade I’ll wager that I have been to approximately 1,000 baseball games, but maybe 30 to 40 college basketball games. A long time ago those numbers would have been reversed.

The bad par, of course, is missing out on the terrific ballplayers that came through the Big Five over the past decade. Oh sure, I caught Jameer Nelson just because St. Joe’s was one of the biggest stories of 2004 when they were No. 1 for most of the college season. However, names like Randy Foye, Allan Ray, Dionte Christmas, Pat Carroll, Mardy Collins, Dante Cunningham, David Hawkins , Kyle Lowry, Steven Smith and Curtis Sumpter (amongst other standouts over the last 10 years), get lost in the pile of early-season ballgames.

Fortunately, Scottie Reynolds of Villanova decided to return to Villanova for his last season because it would be a shame to miss out on watching him play.

Reynolds is an undersized guard in a city with a long tradition of great guards. Though he’s listed at 6-foot-2 and 190 pounds, I suspect he’s probably an even 6-foot and maybe a few pounds lighter. However, unlike the traditional Big 5 guard, Reynolds isn’t content to stay in the backcourt in half-court sets and spread the ball around like Howie Evans, Pepe Sanchez or even a shooter like Lynn Greer.

Reynolds will mix it up inside if need be. For instance, even though he scored 12 straight points from the outside in the first half of the 82-77 victory over No. 11 Georgetown at the Wachovia Center on Sunday afternoon, Reynolds’ biggest hoop of the game came with 3:14 left when he knifed to the hoop against three bigger players for a layup and a foul. For good measure he made four straight foul shots to held ice the game with less than 36 seconds remaining.

Reynolds scored 27 points on just 15 shots and 29 minutes in the victory over Georgetown.

“He can’t be contained,” Georgetown’s coach John Thompson III said after the game. “I don't say that in jest. He's too good of an offensive player and they do too good of a job of getting him where he needs to be. It's nothing new. He’s been doing it for four years. What's different is now as a senior, when they need a basket, he ends up with the ball in his hand and good things happen.”

Though he’s a small guard, Reynolds has a game similar to 6-foot-5 Big Five guard, Mark Macon of Temple. The difference, of course, was that Temple relied on Macon to score. In fact, John Chaney, Macon’s college coach, was known to say that he’d rather have Macon take a bad shot than another player to take a good one. That’s how much Macon meant to Temple and Chaney.

But aside from his freshman year in 1988 when Temple was the No. 1 team in the country, Macon didn’t have the supporting cast like Reynolds has had with Villanova. Still, even with teammates destined for the NBA like Foye, Cunningham, Ray and Kyle Lowry, Reynolds should hit the 2,000-point plateau by the end of the month.

Depending upon how far Villanova goes into the NCAA Tournament, Reynolds could flirt with Kerry Kittles’ all-time scoring record (2,243), which is saying something considering all the talent he had to share the ball with.

Still, the best part about Reynolds—and where he is most like Macon—is that he is accountable. Though Chaney would always forgive one of Macon’s hurried shots, the former Owl (now acting head coach at the University of Binghamton) famously pleaded with his coach to yell at him more. Because Chaney leaned on him so much more than the others, Macon thought he should also have to face the music more often, too.

As if anyone has to tell John Chaney to scream at them twice…

Villanova’s coach Jay Wright also forgives a lot of Reynolds’ mistakes for a lot of the same reasons. That attitude works out very well when Reynolds turns in some bad games like the one he had in the Big East Tournament semifinals against Louisville last year where he went 1-for-6 from the field, including 0-for-3 from beyond the three-point arc with six turnovers and just two measly points in 38 minutes.

Prior to that, Reynolds dropped 40 points on Seton Hall only to fall into a funk where it took him four games to match the scoring output of that one game.

“Some games we lose and he looks really bad, but that never affects him. He comes back the next game and makes the same plays,” Wright said last season, marveling at Reynolds’ fearlessness in the face of failure. “That's a great quality to have as an athlete.”

So if you get the chance to catch Reynolds in action (and you’re into that sort of thing), make sure you do it. After all, players like him are seen just a few times a decade.

Familiar faces

Final Four time means the players become instant stars. It also means that the thousands of media types looking for a story even the slightest bit out of the norm will look nearly anywhere... even to long forgotten photos of pee-wee hoops teams from 1995. Recognize anyone in this picture:

Needless to say, this team was pretty good. Check out the story here.

Battle tested 'Nova aims to repeat history

Close your eyes for the briefest of seconds when he speaks and you would swear it was 1985 all over again. Oh sure, there are a few more pounds these days and the New Yorker accent has softened a bit, but time and travel has a way of doing that sort of thing.

We should all be so lucky.

But to hear Ed Pinckney talk about his alma mater on Wednesday when he returned to Philadelphia with the Minnesota Timberwolves, it may as well had been that crazy run through the first-ever field of 64 nearly 25 years ago.

A last-second win over Dayton on the Flyers’ home court followed by an upset over the top-seeded Michigan, set up Pinckney’s Wildcats up against Len Bias’ Maryland team.

Yeah, that’s right – an ACC team.

“I actually got a chance to go to practice yesterday before they took off for Boston and they looked good,” said Pinckney, who spent the last four years working as Jay Wright’s assistant before jumping to the NBA. “They looked confident, they played consistent all year and all of the senior and rising juniors have matured to great players. Jay has put himself in a great position and I’m feeling very confident about this one. They have a great chance to win Thursday night.”

Continue reading this story ...

Wright will return

Even with the vision of missed jump shot after missed jump shot chipping away the paint from the rim, and the sting of defeat still working its way down the solar plexus, it’s easy to imagine Jay Wright finding himself back in the same point of the NCAA Tournament in the not too distant future. It’s also not too difficult to imagine a different result than the 75-62 defeat to Florida on Sunday afternoon just one game shy of the legacy-making Final Four.

You see, Wright, just 44, is built to last at Villanova. Just this year he was rewarded with a contract extension that lasts until 2013 and will compensate him well enough to keep him in those sharp-looking, single-breasted suits. More importantly, Wright seems to have received the extension for doing something that is often rare in sports these days:

He paid his dues.

Aside from the long car rides beating the recruiting trail as an assistant at Rochester, Drexel and Villanova, before taking over at Hofstra, Wright has restored the luster to ‘Nova that was lost during the angst-filled final days of Rollie Massimino’s run on the Main Line. He has embraced the Big Five series instead of brushing it aside as a trite hometown obligation, while turning his program into a bona fide powerhouse that isn’t going to tiptoe up and surprise any one.

Better yet, Wright’s first group of players to go through a four-year run won more games during that span than any other in school history, all while the coach did all the little things that he prodded his kids to do.

Sure, in the end coach is only as good as his players, but special talent like Randy Foye and Allan Ray always seems to wind up playing for the right coach. And they really seem to make it hard for all of us ‘Nova haters.

More tourney talk Since Villanova won the 1985 tournament, the Big 5 is 0-8 in regional semifinals. ‘Nova has gone down twice, St. Joe’s nipped by Oklahoma State two years ago and Temple has lost five finals under John Chaney.

But even though the local team has finally been sent home, the early word on this year’s tournament is that it’s the best one in a long, long time. Forget about 11th-seeded George Mason making it to the Final Four for a minute, in 60 games the underdog team has won 20 times, while only three games were decided by 20 or more points.

Add in the five overtime games and the fact that no No. 1 seed made it to the final weekend and it’s hard to argue about how compelling this tournament has been.

Then there is George Mason. A diverse, yet regional school that was only founded in 1957, George Mason not only put together one of the greatest upsets in tournament history when knocking off UConn in the regional final, but also strung together one of the most impressive runs to become the highest seeded team to make it to the Final Four.

Not bad for a team that some of the experts said shouldn’t even be in the field.

Certainly there weren’t too many people who thought Mason would beat Michigan State in the opening round, let alone defending national champion North Carolina to get to the Sweet 16. Then with the victory over Wichita State and the No. 1 team in the country, it seems as if the Patriots are a legitimate contender to win the whole thing.

Now all we need to do is find someone who can name a player on the team.

'Nova making a run

It was nearly 21 years ago when a friend’s big brother came home for spring break from a Big 5 school that will remain nameless. With the big national championship showdown between the upstart Villanova Wildcats and the fearsome Georgetown Hoyas only hours away from tip-off, I was excited to gain some insight from someone who had been in Philadelphia during ‘Nova’s magical run. “It must be crazy in Philly, huh?” I asked. “How exciting is it to see a local team go on such a remarkable run?”

The response to my question floored me. Certainly my naiveté was never more evident than it was at that moment. Everyone, especially someone going to school in Philadelphia, had to be rooting for ‘Nova.

Right?

“Exciting?” my friend’s brother said. “I hope Georgetown destroys Villanova. I hope it’s the biggest blowout in NCAA history.”

As it turned out, that Big 5 student – and many others like him – didn’t get his wish that April night in 1985. But better yet, the most important lessons learned was that anything can happen in a sporting event, and there’s something about Villanova that elicits extreme feelings. Like the New York Yankees or Dallas Cowboys, there is no in-between with the Wildcats. You either love ‘em or hate ‘em.

And depending on whether one attended a Big 5 school, those feelings could take on a furious ardor.

So as the days start to get a little longer and the leaves return to the trees, ‘Nova haters will have plenty of chances to exercise their bile. The ‘Cats, you see, are going to make a run to the season’s final weekend. You can book that trip to Indianapolis now because these ‘Cats are legit.

Sure, they lost going away to UConn in Storrs in a game that can’t-miss contenders figure a way to pull out, but not before showing something. You see, playing UConn on their home court is like walking across the mouth of a Venus flytrap – it’s only a matter of time before you get sucked in and are never heard from again.

But it wasn’t like that for Villanova. Coming off a dramatic win at Cincinnati in the equally dreadful Fifth Third Arena, ‘Nova jumped out of the proverbial frying pan and into the fire in the midst of a stretch in which it plays on the road against five big-time opponents. Then comes the Big East Tournament at Madison Square Garden.

Talk about tough.

“We're learning that teams are playing to another level against us. We're learning how to handle that,” coach Jay Wright said last week.

‘Nova handles it by sticking to a rock-solid foundation of basketball basics. Like Novocain, Villanova is so sure its game plan will not fail. Just keeping pounding until it works. In the win in Cincinnati, ‘Nova set the stage for the game-winning shot – which came on a basic pick and cut play – by taking a charge in the lane as the clock was ticking down.

Against UConn on Sunday, the Wildcats’ four-guard offense overcame a sub-par shooting effort by challenging an interior defense that lead the nation in blocked shots for the past four seasons. Sure, ‘Nova had eight shots blocked in the first half, but when it took a lead with a little more than 10 minutes remaining in the game on a shot by Allan Ray, well, that was a moment that resonated in defeat.

More importantly, the loss provided many lessons from which to draw from during the upcoming post-season run.

“We will learn from this,” Wright promised afterwards.

As much as it might be painful for some to admit, Wright’s club will likely be doing a lot of the teaching, too.