PHILADELPHIA – Travis Steele tried to warn everyone Wednesday night.
“This is not an upset,” the Miami of Ohio coach said after his team crushed SMU in the First Four. “There’s some really good mid-major teams – really good.”
Like High Point, which took down Wisconsin.
Like VCU, which rallied from 19 points down to stun North Carolina.
Like Santa Clara, which pushed Kentucky to overtime and would have advanced but for a miracle shot.
“Those teams could compete with anybody," Steele said, "but they don’t get the opportunity in the regular season, quite honestly, to put them in position for an at-large bid.”
High Point coach Flynn Cayman echoed that point.
“High Point and Miami Ohio are 2-1 in Quad 1 games,” he said. “We couldn't get games, they couldn't get games…We won 22 of our last 23 games and we didn't move up one spot in the metrics – not one.”
How many High Points, VCUs and Miami of Ohios got left out of the Big Dance because computers are doing the work of people? Because algorithms have replaced common sense?
March Madness is still America’s greatest sporting event. It’s bigger than sports. It’s Americana. And that’s because the mid-majors and small schools still have a seat at the table and a shot at an upset.
For now.
The power conferences continue to tilt the field in their favor, championing a NET that penalizes good mid-majors who can’t schedule quality opponents, then crying “who did they beat?” when Miami of Ohio is 31-0. There are influential voices suggesting the elimination of automatic bids for smaller leagues.
Bruce Pearl has been the face of his entitlement, spouting off on any and every platform about how Auburn (which is coached by his son) should be in the Big Dance with a 17-16 record, including a 7-11 mark in the SEC. As if the SEC doesn't have enough built-in advantages, they now have this carnival barker stumping for them on CBS.
Taking Pearl's biases a bit further, there are people out there who want to get rid of the automatic qualifiers. That would have kept High Point and VCU, whose NET and Kenpom rankings were worse than Auburn's, out of the field. That would have removed the madness from March.
The best part about college basketball is its humanity. An off game by a star, or a heater by a Doug Edert, or a crowd that senses something special and gets behind the underdog, can change everything. We need more VCUs and fewer algorithms. More High Points and less metrics. And a whole lot less of Bruce Pearl.
Jerry Carino has covered the New Jersey sports scene since 1996 and the college basketball beat since 2003. Contact him at jcarino@gannettnj.com.
This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: In March Madness Miami of Ohio, VCU, High Point prove Bruce Pearl wrong