(03-19-2023 10:20 AM)bcunn3128 Wrote: (03-19-2023 09:15 AM)northcoastRocket Wrote: Fennelly also votes in the coaches poll. Wonder if he gives Toledo any love in the final poll. I also see Barnes Arico from Michigan also votes, but again she never showed Toledo any love. I mean, doesn't that make UM's loss to Toledo look worse, if UT can't even get a single vote? Strange.
Based on the most recent coaches poll, this Rockets team has now beaten their #18 (on the road) & #20 (neutral site) teams, and gave their #13 team a good game for at least a half (and that #18 team was ranked higher at the time). Not even giving Toledo 1 vote would say a lot more about any coaches voting in the poll than it does Toledo. And BG’s coach needs to be thinking more strategically with her vote—she could be that team left out in the cold again next selection Sunday if the MAC continues to get zero respect. She isn’t helping matters.
Honestly it really won't ever matter., tournament-wise. The committee has shown that they will make any excuse to keep mid-majors out of the tourney and disrespect the ones that get in. Just look at the way they keep disrespecting FGCU, even though they do everything right, playing anyone during the season and then regularly winning in the tourney. They were 32-3 this year, had a NET of 36 and were still given a 12 seed. Even with all they did, the talk was that if they lost in their conference tourney, they were "on the bubble" and there was a good chance they would not have gotten and at-large. Just like Columbia.
The 12-5 games are interesting. This year UT beat #17 ISU and FGCU beat the PAC-12 champ, Washington State. Drake played Louisville and was really the much better team, but lost by 2 in the end because they kept missing uncontested layups (probably 6-7 in the 2nd half alone) and several key FTs down the stretch. That, and 1 Louisville player literally carried them in the last quarter. The only 12 seed to be beaten soundly was Portland.
So, why the 12 seeds you ask? Well, because that's where they put the mid-majors that they know are good but don't want to give any respect to. In recent memory, no P6 team has ever been given a seed lower than #11. None. In fact, when they added the 4 play-in games to go to 68 teams, they specifically chose to have a play in at #11, and what do they do with those 2 extra #11 seeds? They give them to P6 teams that may not have deserved to get in anyway.
The 13-16 seeds are all taken up by low major conference teams, so that leaves one place to put the Toledos and the FGCUs of the world. Yes, a few mid-majors will occasionally get higher seeds. Princeton got a 10 this year, but it has taken Princeton years of stellar performance to earn even that. Same with South Dakota State who got a 9. By the way, both of those teams won their 1st round games.
So I have to believe it is all a scam so that the P6 conferences don't have to share much of the money the tourneys generate. I have seen no evidence to date to proven that wrong.