More on UCLA – historically bad selection. This is not a ‘wah wah’ nit-picky conclusion … it’s one of the worst inclusions of all-time.
“This year, that team was UCLA, which has yet to beat a tournament team in a true road game. They were awful away from Pauley Pavilion this year, going 4-12 overall. Two of those wins were against USC. The others were at Stanford and a neutral court win against UAB. I went back over my 21 years of data and could not find a poorer team off their home floor that got an at-large bid. The committee has a history of rewarding teams that can beat tournament quality teams away from home. The Bruins fail that test.
Even UCLA’s home wins weren’t that great. They beat Utah and Oregon for their only top 50 wins. The Bruins were 2-8 against the top 50, and had three bad conference losses at Arizona State, Oregon State and Colorado.”
Espn (more of emotional-based whining article rather than anything truly substantive)
“Selection committee chairman Scott Barnes called the UCLA pick “one of the tougher decisions we had to make.” But he defended putting the Bruins (20-13) in the bracket despite an RPI of 48, which is 18 spots lower than Colorado State.
“We felt they were gaining steam,” Barnes said. “They did have a good strength of schedule. They were playing better against tough competition. An example is the last game against Arizona [a 70-64 loss in the Pac-12 semifinals]. I think the eye test was also a plus in putting them in the field.”
^Notice he didn’t say anything about actually effing ‘winning’ against tough competition. Feels > reals. Disgusting.
