Hurley missing Big East friends
UConn coach Dan Hurley remains perplexed that the Big East received only three bids for the NCAA Tournament, bemoaning the decision as a “mistake” as the conference remained undefeated through two rounds.
With the top-seeded Huskies’ 75-58 win over Northwestern on Sunday night at Barclays Center, the Big East improved to 6-0 since the start of March Madness, with second-seeded Marquette and third-seeded Creighton also advancing to the Sweet Sixteen.
The Big East is the only conference with multiple bids to make it through the opening weekend without a loss.
“You’ve seen how other leagues that got the bids that our league deserved have underperformed,” Hurley said after the game.
Among the Big East schools to miss the tournament were Seton Hall, which went 13-7 in conference play with home wins over UConn and Marquette; and St. John’s, which went 11-9 against the Big East and advanced to the conference tournament semifinal.
Both teams won 20 games, while Providence won 21, including victories over Marquette and Creighton.
“Seton Hall beat us by 15,” Hurley said. “We’ve won eight straight in this tournament, all by significant margins, and they were good enough to beat us, and they were good enough to beat Marquette. There should have been five or six Big East teams in this tournament.”
The Big 12 and the SEC tied for the most tournament bids with eight apiece. Both conferences were on the wrong side of early upsets, with Kansas, Baylor, Texas Tech and BYU of the Big 12 and Kentucky, Auburn, South Carolina, Florida and Mississippi State of the SEC each losing to lower seeds.
Meanwhile, only one of the six Mountain West teams to make the tournament remains alive.
Seton Hall, which was among the Selection Committee’s first four teams out, is the top seed in the NIT Championship and is set to face UNLV in the quarterfinal round Wednesday. St. John’s declined to participate in the NIT, while Providence was eliminated in the first round by Boston College.
Working against the Big East bubble teams was that five socalled bid-stealers unexpectedly won their conference tournaments, granting them automatic entry into the NCAA Tournament while eliminating the number of at-large bids available.
“About a week to 10 days ago, I think six of us were all in, and with all the upsets, every possible upset happened,” St. John’s coach Rick Pitino said shortly after learning his team missed the Big Dance. “The three of us really, really got hurt by that. More upsets than I’ve seen in quite some time.”
The NCAA’s NET Rankings, which value wins and losses using metrics including opponent winning percentage and game location, and the analytics website KenPom both considered St. John’s among the top 32 teams in the country but were far less favorable toward Providence and Seton Hall.
“We’re 32 in the NET. I think we all should probably never mention that word again because I think it’s fraudulent,” Pitino added on Selection Sunday. “I think that we had a good strength of schedule. KenPom, why mention him? We were (25th) in KenPom.”
On Sunday, Big East commissioner Val Ackerman said her conference needs a better grasp on what the selection committee considers with the NET Rankings.
“We think we’re better than three bids,” Ackerman said at Barclays Center. “(We) know we are.”
Hurley’s Huskies, the defending NCAA champions, are set to play fifth-seeded San Diego State on Thursday in Boston in a rematch of last year’s national championship game. Marquette is scheduled to face the surging No. 11 seed NC State on Friday in Dallas, while Creighton will play No. 2 seed Tennessee later that night in Detroit.
The Big East coaches are cheering each other on in a group text.
“I know everyone is fired up to see us continue to push and rep the league at a high level,” Hurley said. “I know Val is excited, too. Obviously, the mistake was made.”