Patrick Mills' Return Should Lift St. Mary's Into Tourney

Point guard Patrick Mills has been cleared to play in the WCC tournament which begins in Las Vegas on Sunday. (Don't ask why that conference chose Sin City of all places.) That's great news that not only greatly increases St. Mary's conference tournament chances, but also should impact the Gaels at-large bid hopes.

St. Mary's isn't in the tournament right now -- not according to any of the mock brackets out there. But should St. Mary's be given the benefit of the doubt in this instance? Should the tournament selection committee consider Mills' injury while figuring out the tournament resume of the Gaels? Uh, yeah.

And for that reason, St. Mary's should be given an at-large bid in the tournament.
Now a lot of you might take offense to this. Mainly because you are big school snobs who would rather see the eighth place team from the Big Ten make the tournament over a deserving mid-major. (And yes, it's dangerous to generalize, but play along.)

But when your postseason championship is, in large part, determined by a committee, then everything should be a factor. NCAA basketball isn't as cut and dry as, say, football. There is no selection committee in the NFL that weighs Tom Brady's injury and decides to give the Patriots a playoff bid over the Ravens. Though, that would be a pretty cool idea.

The NCAA however, does have conference winners. You have the conference winners, and then you have at large bids. Committee members will sit in a room and hash out the remaining bids. The committee will consider schedule, quality wins and a number of factors. And if a team lost its star point guard for a large chunk of the season, that team should be given the benefit of the doubt. Especially if that player is returning. If Mills was out for the season, I wouldn't be pushing for this. But when your participants are so subjective, taking injuries into consideration should play a big part.

And likewise, if a team loses its point guard for the season and he doesn't return, then the committee should consider that too and rule against them. Right Marquette? That team is completely different without Dominic James and shouldn't even be considered for the tournament right now.

St. Mary's with Mills is certainly an at-large team. And my hunch is that St. Mary's probably wins the WCC tournament to make this point moot. Still, it shouldn't come to that and hopefully the tournament selection committee does the right thing.