The Snubs From This Year’s Dance
March 17, 2009 – 7:32 am by Michael Bean
Each year there’s a handful of teams that feel they got the short end of the stick when it comes to having their bubble burst and being left out of the NCAA Tournament. More often than not, it’s a ‘mid-major’ that’s not invited to the Dance, and each year, the conversation about scheduling seems to resurface as pundits debate how level the playing field is for smaller basketball programs trying to schedule competitive non-conference games. Anyway, here are the head coaches of several programs that found themselves on the outside looking after the final region was announced on Selection Sunday. Dick Vitale has been pushing the case of St. Mary’s over Arizona, but others also thought Providence had a good shot to make it out of the Big East, and one has to wonder if a team like Temple winning the Atlantic 10 or USC winning the Pac 10 took bids away from one or both of those two schools, or from San Diego State, who also had a strong case for inclusion.
St. Mary’s coach Randy Bennett on what his team could have done to position themselves better for an at-large berth:
“It’s apples and oranges, that’s the frustrating part. You’re trying to compare teams that are in totally different situations so anytime you’re doing that, it’s hard. And there’s a lot of subjectivity that gets involved in it. We tried so hard to get the games, and I’m not trying to make any excuses or sell anything. I’m just trying to shed light on the situation of a team that went to the NCAA tournament [last year] that returned 7 of our top 9 guys off a 25 win team. Nobody’s coming into our gym to play us. We called everybody.”
Listen here to St. Mary’s head coach Randy Bennett on KNBR in San Francisco
**********
Steve Fisher on being excluded:
“The challenge for us with five seniors. I mean they were all hopeful. They were all convinced we were going to get in. I’ve been it long enough to know that when you don’t do it on your own, cut the nets down in Vegas, you’ve got to hold your breath and get white knuckles. So the challenge will be to make sure our kids don’t feel sorry for themselves. It’s easier said than done quite honestly.”
Listen here to San Diego State head coach Steve Fisher on XX 1090 in San Diego
**********
Coach Davis on missing out on the Dance in his first year at Providence, despite winning 10 games in the rugged Big East:
“The Big East did very well getting the seeds that they did. We tied with West Virginia at 10-8 for 7th place in the conference and West Virginia got a #6 seed and we got left out.”
Listen here to Providence head coach Keno Davis on WEEI in Boston
Tags: college basketball interviews, KNBR, March Madness, NCAA Tournament snubbed, Providence Friars basketball, San Diego State Aztecs basektball, sports interviews, St. Mary's basketball, WEEI, XX 1090
