“Obviously, the mistake was made. It sucks.”
Those were the words of UConn Huskies men's basketball coach Dan Hurley, who in the aftermath of his team's eighth consecutive NCAA Tournament win by double-digits, took some time to once again discuss with reporters his disappointment with the fact that the Big East, a proud and historically dominant conference ever since its inception in 1979, was limited to just three bids into the 2024 NCAA Tournament. It should be mentioned that this win for UConn not only sent the Huskies to the Sweet Sixteen, but it also meant that the Big East would be sending three teams to the Sweet Sixteen without having lost a team along the way, making them the first conference to accomplish this since the SEC did so in 2014.
“Just the quality of the league; look what we've done in non-conference games.” Hurley said on Sunday, according to ESPN's Jordan Raanan. “I don't know what our record is the last two years, non-conference [multi-team events], NCAA tournament, and Seton Hall beat us by 15. You know, we've won eight straight in this tournament, all by significant margins, and they were good enough to beat us and they were good enough to beat Marquette. And there should have been five or six Big East teams in this tournament.”
This is true of Seton Hall, and as Dan Hurley points out, the Pirates were not the only Big East school that has a legitimate bone to pick with the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee. Both St. John's and Providence were firmly on the bubble, and their resumes were plenty good enough to be included in the field of 68. Together, Seton Hall, St. John's and Providence combined for 29 Quad 1 and Quad 2 wins, including victories over each of the three top teams in the conference. But surprisingly, all three of St. John's, Seton Hall, and Providence finished outside of the top 30 in the NET rankings, a tool which the Selection Committee uses to assist in creating the bracket. But the million dollar question is what exactly does the NET value most?
“I think there are lots of questions within the membership about what the most important factor is in NET,” says Big East Commissioner Val Ackerman (h/t John Fanta of FOX Sports). “There is some mystery about how it’s computed.”
According to Ackerman, the NCAA will be reviewing the NET in the offseason, and surely that has to do with the uproar that came as a result of all three of St. John's, Providence, and Seton Hall being left out of the field. Ackerman herself has remained vigilant over the last week in searching for answers, but even she admits there's very little she can do besides working behind the scenes.
“We have to abide by the committee's process. Are we working behind the scenes to try to better understand what the committee is looking for? Yes, that is happening. But I don't think screaming at the top of my lungs is going to get us more teams.”
The good news for Ackerman is as was the case in the 1980's, when the Big East became the marquee conference in college basketball, there are plenty of vocal coaches with big names and even bigger personalities who will have no problem doing the screaming.
“Me, [Marquette coach Shaka Smart] and [Creighton coach Greg McDermott], we've got a group chat going, and the other coaches in our league, I saw [Providence coach] Kim [English] and [Seton Hall coach] Shaheen [Holloway], you know, with the full league group chat that we have got with the coaches. I know everyone is fired up to see us continue to push and rep the league at a high level,” Hurley said on Sunday.
There is still the possibility Connecticut, Marquette, and Creighton could all make Final Four runs, which would be only the second time a single conference has produced three of the four teams in the Final Four. Care to venture a guess which conference has done that in the past?
That's right, the Big East did so in 1985 when Georgetown, St. John's and Villanova all earned spots in the Final Four.
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