First up--Gratitude
--For JCT's great reflection piece
--For the absolutely magnificent coverage given LUC and our team by the Tribune and Sun Times staffs--Haugh Morrissey Rosie and those great Gal reporters !!
--Chicago !! Nuf sed here !!
--PM and the TEAM !! For giving this old guy ONE MORE FABULOUS MEMORY
--For Sister Jean DOLORES--her kindness to me a couple years back

ARROGANCE THE NCAA and MICHIGAN Coach
--For insisting on using the term MID MAJOR and then hiding behind it with pitiful excuses --poor scheduling--to protect merely adequate FOOTBALL Schools--LUC made a mockery of that as we know

HYPOCRACY !!
Michigan's Coach and his comments re scheduling us and deserved teams like us--His quote re having Sr Jean asking him to play us---all the while hiding behind NCAA skirts of protection--sickening and disgusting !! Piling on of course in my view

Gratitude for our TEAM and PORTER and the honest and CLEAN program we have !!

MY PREDICTIONS --
PORTER STAYS !!
He and Watson will find better rated teams for us to play--Out of all the schools they will find four or five plus a better early tourney for us
DePaul. NW or Illinois !! One of these three will be on our sched next season !!

I am not sure on your issue of mid major. Mid major is a financial definition nothing more nothing less. The big public universities will always have more resources. If you are a very good basketball school in a mid major conference it is important to build up the nonconference schedule. The reality is that the other teams in a mid major conference will not contribute to your NCAA resume because they are no challenge. This can happen to even a power 5 conference. Penn State was probably a legit tournament team. Yet because most of the Big10 was down the combination of that and PSU's poor non conference schedule prevented them from making the tournament. So it can happen to a power conference school also.

I would say if a program thinks they are a player, they should schedule a challenging non conference schedule. The emphasis for this was to prevent power programs from loading up on quadrant 3 & 4 games and make the statement picking up a dozen easy wins and splitting your conference is not enough, example PSU. The other side of this sword is by default the MVC conference is all quadrant 3. Some teams that originated in mid majors have chosen to move to bigger conferences example Butler to work out of this issue.

I would say that if the other conference programs cannot keep pace if Loyola wants to move on, they should move to a more challenging conference. If it was not for injuries Loyola could have run the table in their conference. The reality is you need to show how good your team is. Obliterating teams you are supposed to beat does not prove anything. This showed as Loyola's Kenpom was significantly better than what their seed was. This team in my team is comparable to that Butler team that made a nice run. The only difference is that Butler team had a couple NBA skilled players that got them one round further. That makes it clear what Moser needs to do. He needs to find that diamond in the rough or two who can fit in the system but be capable of just making individual plays when NBA talent is needed.

MVC has sent 12-6 and 15-3 teams to the Final Four the last 5 years. MVC ranked 8th of 32 leagues this year. All 10 teams in the top half of KenPom. MVC has won 10 straight 1st round games and sent 5 different programs to the Sweet 16 the last 12 years.

The problem with Loyola wasn’t the MVC. It was the committee makeup having 50% (5/10) of members from P6 leagues despite only representing 18% (6/32) of conferences. That bloc of committee members plus the media has little understanding of teams outside their P6 bubble.

The MVC is not a cupcake conference. The MVC ranked higher than the A10, Mountain West, and West Coast Conference in Conference RPI.

The third place MVC team beat one of last year's Final Four teams.

The sixth place team in the MVC beat Indiana in Bloomington by 21 points, and beat Loyola in Chicago.

The seventh place team in the MVC beat Western Kentucky and South Dakota State on the road and Loyola at home.

The NINTH place team in the MVC beat NC State, SMU, and UNLV, and held Villanova to their lowest scoring output of the season.

The last place team in the MVC had a higher RPI than the last place team in the Big 10, Big East, SEC, ACC, and Pac 12.

Yes, I know RPI has been de-emphasized in favor of other metrics. The NCAA Tournament Selection Committee now disregards the RPI (a metric they invented in the first place to justify stiffing or down-seeding good teams from mid-level conferences) for BOTH seeding and selection. But only for teams from conferences that DON'T play 75% or more of their non conference games at home. If it sounds like Reverse Robin Hood, that's exactly what it is.

The Quartile metric (which is still based on RPI, the metric they disregard when it favors mid-level conference teams) does not take into account the scheduling advantages that are FURTHER amplified by the quartile system. But here's where it really goes off the rails--- the quartile ratings are focused ONLY on wins, and from what I've seen, virtually ignores losses. So a team that is 4-3 in Q1 and Q2 wins (like a Loyola or St. Mary's or New Mexico State or Western Kentucky) is LESS qualified in the eyes of the committee than a team that is 7-11 in Q1/Q2 games (like Texas or Virginia Tech or Oklahoma or Alabama) and under-.500 in conference. It only focuses on the seven wins as being better than the four wins, and ignores the eight more losses.

So essentially, the committee focuses only on the success of teams that have the greater ability to control their scheduling, and focuses only on the failures of the teams that don't have the resources to choose their opponents. They might as well start seeding entirely on the basis of budgets.

Sorry Gang ! I feel that the fix is in !! Sad but I feel true !! TRhe mere fact that the Committee has so many FOOTBALL schools on it says a ton !!

This is a response to JCT. You can't pick in choose games here or there. The nature of competition is even in football where the odds are stacked higher there will be upsets. RPI has really been discredited. I think it is good that a victory you are supposed to win is not worth anything. I don't think a power conference should be scheduling games against Div II or III schools. More often then not the games on the schedule are not great and there are a lot of bombs.

As a fan even of a power conference school whether it be football or basket and I will emphasize with caps. I HATE CUPCAKE GAMES!!!! I do not want to see the Michigan Wolverines play Eastern Michigan 70 to 3 in football. Conversely I do not want to see the basketball team win by 60 against a Div III team just to pad the NCAA resume. I would rather see my team lose in a tough game every time then a useless victory. For the team they are measured. For the fan we are entertained. For the committee determining seeds they know the team. This is not an arrogance thing. Competition is what we want. I think it is great that teams trying to stack their non conference schedules are getting dinged.

This will mean that a good school in a lesser conference has to schedule enough games during the preseason to build a resume if they do not want to win. I don't know what you want. Nebraska went 13-5 in the Big10 and did not make the NCAA tournament. Are you suggesting that Southern Illinois as the 2nd place team should have made the tournament at 11-7 despite having no quadrant one or two wins? Neither team made the tournament because they did not beat enough good teams including that arrogant football school that won almost three quarters of their conference games and beat Michigan by 20.

The end result is unless you win your automatic berth, whether you are mid major or a power conference team, you better schedule some good games. Competition is always the better thing.

This is for Milkman- Schools like MTSU and Saint Mary's were totally jobbed, being passed over for teams that had below .500 Q1 & Q2 records while also having below .500 in conference records. JCTs point is that simply getting a lot of opportunities against good competition seems to matter more than actually performing well against good competition. P5 Schools schedule basically all home games and an MTE and then coast on just needing to go slightly below .500 in their conference to make the NCAA tournament. There is little to no incentive to play strong mid major programs, the P5 schools dont need to W to boost their resume, so all it can do is hurt them.

I understand that you probably like this system, but no mid major programs can schedule 11 home games and 2 road games in their non-conference schedule like U of M did this year and hope to get an at large bid.

I'm going to disagree. If a school is in a powerful conference then this might work. However you are picking exceptions. This would not have worked in the Big10 because the Big10 was down this year. A team that had a soft non conference for example PSU did not make the tournament. A few years ago the SEC was down and there was probably a PSU equivalent. Yes, there will always be three or four teams that feel they were jobbed. That will always be the case when you have to pick a limit. But you are arguing about up ending the entire system because you are upset about teams getting in or not getting in on the margins.

I think the system is good. St Mary's did not have enough quality wins such that when they did not get the automatic bid they were out. PSU did not have enough quality wins and they did not get in either. I saw PSU play a lot. They were a tourney team by the end of the year. If UM does not dig out tough wins at Texas & UCLA, an early round loss in the Big10 tournament means they are not in either.

I think this is fine. If Loyola is consistently heads and shoulders above the rest of the MVC, they need to move up just like the club system for soccer. However, you want to slice it the MVC had only one legit NCAA team and that was Loyola. This may seem unfair but that is the nature of size. The big schools have more resources and attract higher rated players. It does not guarantee success and mid majors for years have shown that in a one & done tournament they can compete. But I do not want to reduce competition all so that if St Mary's fails to take care of business they get a "get out of jail free" card. I am not going to have empathy for a team not making the tournament because they were the big dude in the conference and they did not take care of business in their tournament. If a conference does not like that say that the regular season champion gets the automatic bid.

It just shows your lack of knowledge of mid major hoops if you think Saint Mary's is the big dog in the WCC. They finished the season ranked in the top 25, leaving them out so the 10th place finisher in the ACC could get in is a simple cash grab plain and simple. When you see this type of thing happen over and over again (last year it was ISU) its not coincidental, the move to the Q system only makes it more likely that this will continue to happen.

Also Penn State was 9-9 in the Big10, being mediocre shouldnt be rewarded with a tournament appearance.

Adjusted for conference and national tournaments PSU was 19th and St Mary 32nd. I don't know much about St Marys. Looks like they were 2nd fiddle to Gonzaga. You know my response. Don't lose to WSU, Georgia, and bow out of your tournament early. Just like politics I'm not going to promote policy on notorious exceptions. St Mary's marque out of conference victory is California. If St Mary's beats an awful WSU team or a bad Georgia team, or makes it to the conference finals and loses a tough game to Gonzaga they are in. We know right now that PSU was way better than St Mary's. I don't have a problem with PSU not making the tourney. St Mary's went 0-3 on what they needed to do. Even if this was the notorious exception I will disagree that this was not. St Mary's deserved to be kicked out because they lost to bad teams in the nonconference, played in a imbalanced league, and then lost in the semi's to a team with one power 5 victory in its resume. They go one for three and they are in. Aka beat crummy WSU.