Counterpoint: South Alabama Earned Their Chance to Dance

This morning, MDS shared some video of Jay Bilas saying that the selection committee showed too much favoritism toward South Alabama at the expense of teams from bigger conferences. My esteemed colleague agreed with his take on USA.

But with all due respect to South Alabama, I do think he's correct, in that particular case, that the Jaguars (who 75th in the Pomeroy ratings and rank 67th in the Sagarin Predictor) really aren't one of the 34 best at-large teams, and that choosing them in the field of 34 was an attempt to give a mid-major a break.

Let's take a look at another video. This is Tom O'Connor, head of the committee.

Winning games. That's where the argument against South Alabama loses weight with me.

I can't argue in favor of the overall strength of their schedule, they play in the Sun Belt which makes that impossible, but that's beyond their control. One thing that's in their control is winning the games they play. The Jaguars were 24-6 overall and 16-2 in conference.

Something else in their control is who they play out of conference. USA played stiffer competition than Virginia Tech, Arizona State and Ole Miss, to name three Big Six schools who were left out of the fun. Bilas thinks big conference schools get unfairly criticized for playing weak slates but I think it's unfair to give them extra credit for playing .500 or worse just because of who else is in their conference.

A bid to the NCAA Tournament needs to be earned. South Alabama may not be one of the 34 best at-large contenders but they earned the right by winning games. I'll take that over treading water in a good conference any day.