No More Mid-Major Love

As Syracuse once again makes the Committee look like they know what they're doing and infuriating those of us who thought they had no business in the Tournament, the mid-majors are having quite a showing.  Seven mid-majors won first round games (including UMBC's epic upset of Virginia), and, with a few games to go in the second round, we're guaranteed at least three (one of which is Gonzaga, which barely counts anymore) in the Sweet 16, with a guaranteed Elite Eight appearance for either Loyola Chicago or Nevada.

Which further goes to show that the difference between the "top" teams and the mid-majors isn't really that large.  We all knew this already, especially after the Final Four runs by VCU, George Mason, Butler, Wichita State and Gonzaga in recent years.  Yet, come Selection Sunday, mid-major teams are getting less and less love.

A friend of mine sent me a Yahoo article the other day that broke down the at-large bids in this year's Tournament.  Of the 36 at-large bids, a grand total of three went to teams outside the top seven leagues (Power 5, Big East and American).  Two--Rhode Island and Nevada--were regular season conference champions.  The third, St. Bonaventure, got sent to Dayton.  All three won their first game.  Nevada's in the Sweet 16.

Meanwhile, the ACC, the supposed "best" conference, lands eight at-large bids.  You know how many ACC teams are in the Sweet 16?  Three!  (With the potential of Florida State making it four.)  And with Duke playing Syracuse in the next round, the ACC will lose another one before the Elite Eight.  This despite boasting the No. 1 overall seed (Virginia) and the defending National Champion (North Carolina).  (By the way, the SEC, which got eight teams in the field, is down to just Kentucky and Texas A&M.)

The Committee clearly has a lot of respect for the ACC.  Virtually everyone had Syracuse out, but they got in because of the strength of the conference (more on that in a moment).  And Notre Dame was the first team out, so it would've been 10 if Davidson hadn't won the Atlantic 10.  Meanwhile, mid-major teams like Middle Tennessee and Saint Mary's (Middle Tennessee especially) apparently weren't even really considered.  Which leaves you wondering what mid-major teams have to do.

When they expanded the field to 68 teams in 2011, most people thought that one of the benefits would be that mid-majors would have a better chance of getting in with the three (now two) extra at-large bids.  And in the first few years of the First Four, that was exactly the case.

In 2011, the first year of the 68-team format, when VCU made its memorable run from the First Four to the Final Four, the Rams were one of seven mid-major at-large teams.  In 2012, it was a whopping 11 teams, with the Mountain West, Atlantic 10 and West Coast Conference all landing more Tournament teams than the Pac-12 that year.  In 2013, the Mountain West and Atlantic 10 both got five bids, and there was again a total of 11 mid-major at-large teams.

Then came 2014, when conference realignment really began to rear its ugly head.  That's the year of the Big East/American split, giving us seven major conferences instead of six.  It also marked the start of the disappearing at-large bids for mid-majors.  Over the past five years, this is the breakdown of at-large bids for schools outside those seven conferences is:

• 2014: 7 (5 of which came from the Atlantic 10)
• 2015: 6
• 2016: 3
• 2017: 3
• 2018: 3

It's not like there haven't been quality mid-major teams over the past five seasons.  In fact, I present 2016 Monmouth, 2017 Illinois State and 2018 Middle Tennessee as mid-major teams that belonged in the field, only to be left out in favor of a bigger name from one of those top seven conferences (usually a seventh-, eighth- or even ninth-place team from one of those leagues)!

Sadly, this doesn't seem likely to change in the near future, either.  The Committee is obsessed with "quadrant one" wins, which it's virtually impossible for mid-major teams to get once conference play starts.  Meanwhile, the seventh- or eighth-best team in the ACC is going to have ample opportunity to get those wins simply because they're required to play Duke and North Carolina night after night in conference play.  And I, for one, don't think teams should be given extra credit for playing conference games.  

Likewise, mid-majors shouldn't be expected to go undefeated in conference play.  Yet, those losses are repeatedly held against these strong mid-majors.  Who also have little to no opportunity to get these "quadrant one" wins the Committee loves so much, not just because of the conferences they play in, but because the Power 5 teams won't play them.  And, with the ACC going to a 20-game conference schedule in 2019 (and the others likely to soon follow), it'll further reduce those non-conference opportunities.

So, in other words, we've got a genuine catch-22 on our hands.  In order to get in, they need to play a stronger schedule.  But the opportunities to play those games are few and far between.  (And even when they do play a Power 5 road game, they have no idea whether or not that opponent is actually going to be good when they schedule it two years in advance.)

For mid-majors, it's becoming increasingly clear that they need to win their tournament and not leave their tournament fate up to the Committee.  Which is a shame.  Because as we've seen, the mid-majors can't just hang with the big boys.  They can beat them.