Just One Major Injustice in NCAA Brackets, I Think

From an article in this morning's Cincinnati Enquirer:

OXFORD- The Miami Redhawks, at no. 39, had the best Ratings Percentage Index ranking of any team not to receive a bid to the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament and were one of just three teams with ratings in the top 50 on CollegeRPI.com not to get in.

Every year, of course, there are complaints about who wasn't invited into March Madness. But the snub of Miami of Ohio is particularly egregious. As the Enquirer article, written by Mark Curnutte, points out:

"Miami is believed to have the highest RPI of any team not invited to the NCAA Tournament since No. 33 Oklahoma in 1994."

Since 65 teams are invited to the Big Dance, you can understand the dismay of Miami fans.

Miami's chances were no doubt hurt by two major factors:

(1) The loss of four of their six last games.

(2) Playing in the Mid-American Conference (MAC), considered a "mid-major."

However, in a year when the level of play in a few major conferences has been lower than usual, there should have been some room among the 35 at-large bids for a mid-major that appears to be the thirty-ninth best team in the country.

I'm a Big Ten guy, for example, but the conference simply didn't deserve to place five teams in the tournament. I expect several of them to be knocked off very early.

Conference USA, a mediocre conference this year, has several teams invited to March Madness.

Teams garnering at-large bids that have lower RPIs than that of Miami are also in the tournament.

For the most part, I think that the tournament invitation committee did a terrific job. I was pleased that Saint Mary's was invited, for example.

But it's too bad that Miami won't have a chance to vie, however fleetingly, for the national title. They deserve that.