(03-21-2017 01:01 PM)_C2_ Wrote:  I see where you're coming from but Arlington had one too many bad losses in conference. Of the NCAA Tournament caliber teams they played, they only beat St. Mary's. TSU and Mount Saint also made the Dance but would not have sniffed anything without an auto-bid. For that matter, neither would Florida Gulf Coast but they are a team that could have gotten an at-large with a few more wins. They picked a bad year to play and beat Texas FWIW.

So no, Arlington didn't deserve an invite and being blown out in their conference tournament semifinals was the nail in the coffin. At the very least they are making up for it by being a step away from the NIT semifinals.

I'm in the camp of thinking no at-large deserves a bid. They're at-larges. So, we're not totally in disagreement over some of this. And, at the end, they're all kind of a big blob of mediocrity. The issue becomes, what value trumps what? I don't disagree that UTA has its flaws. But, you win your conference outright, you play nine games in the non-conference on the road (and let's be honest about that one...who is really doing that in the majors?), you beat a top 20 RPI team, you lose to two in the top 25...all three of them on the road. The RPI, the non-conference SOS and RPI all respectable...they do have more going for them than others. It's just that you can't look past the bad teams in the Sun Belt.

When it comes to the metrics, there's just no consistency to a method or formula. I know what one can have against Illinois State...it's just Wichita State and nobody else as a good win (and for a bit there, they weren't even a top 50). And Murray State and Tulsa are red flags. Not unlike UTA's slips against Texas State and Coastal. Monmouth with St. Peter's, Rider, and Siena. The quality isn't stacked, and there are bad losses. In a bad conference. From those three perspectives, you can pretty much **** anyone over from a non-major...the good teams aren't on the weekly schedule.

The non-conference schedule was...is...supposed to be the equalizer. It's a place where major conference teams are supposed to prove who they are against the rest of D1 because of the parity and other variables that kind of stain conference play and their wins. And this year, it looks like the committee just looked at every good win at face value. And it's not supposed to be like that!

Plus, bad losses or no, where good wins are hard to find, the trump card seems to always be "well, who did you beat?" You could flip those bad losses on ISU and UTA's record...does that push them in, really?