Bracket Busters

[50's PONY]

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HoustonChronicle.com -- http://www.HoustonChronicle.com | Section: Sports

Feb. 15, 2004, 11:57PM


Bracket Buster features good and bad
By NEIL HOHLFELD
Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle

The concept of Bracket Buster Saturday is a good one. But like many good ideas, overkill has taken over.

A year ago, 18 teams from mid-major conferences took center stage on a Saturday in late February. The idea was to give the winners a boost in their chances for an NCAA bid even if they didn't win their conference tournaments.

Last year was the first year for the event, hatched mainly by commissioners of the Missouri Valley, Horizon and Mid-American conferences and abetted by ESPN. Most likely, Southern Illinois got into the NCAA Tournament in large part by virtue of its win over Wisconsin-Milwaukee on Bracket Buster Saturday after the Salukis lost in the Missouri Valley Conference tournament.

So if nine games were a good thing, why not make the field bigger? Why not make it 23 games and 46 teams from 11 conferences? Come one, come all.

Come on. There are, to be sure, some intriguing games in Bracket Buster II Saturday. But there are also some games involving teams that couldn't bust a bracket with a jackhammer. For instance, how about the Evansville (5-17) at Central Michigan (4-14) game? Or Eastern Michigan (10-11) at Cleveland State (4-21)?

Not excited? Neither is Evansville coach Steve Merfeld.

"To be honest, I haven't given it much thought," Merfeld said three weeks ago.

Bracket Buster is tipped heavily to the Mid-American (13 teams), Missouri Valley (10) and Horizon (eight). Five teams from the Western Athletic Conference, including Rice, are involved. There are three from the Sun Belt, two from the Southern and one each from the Big West, Colonial, Metro Atlantic, Ohio Valley and West Coast.

Five games are on ESPN or ESPN2, with five others on ESPN-Plus, a pay-per-view and regional network. The Louisiana-Lafayette-Rice game at Autry Court is an ESPN-Plus game that reportedly will be shown on a Time Warner Cable access channel. Details will be announced this week.

The Owls (16-7) are in the same position as several Bracket Buster teams. If they beat Louisiana-Lafayette of the Sun Belt Conference, it won't really help their NCAA at-large chances. But if they lose to the Ragin' Cajuns, who have a No. 90 RPI in simulated power ratings, it will damage those chances.

Probably no game fits that profile more than Gonzaga at Tulsa. The Zags (21-2) are ranked No. 7 in the nation; Tulsa, for years one of the top mid-major teams, is having an off year and is 7-15. The only reason the teams are playing is the schools signed a home-and-home contract as part of last year's Bracket Buster.

Last year, Tulsa lost at Gonzaga. This year, there were reports that Gonzaga and ESPN approached Tulsa about allowing the Zags to play a more worthy opponent. Tulsa said no way.

"We're supposed to be playing Gonzaga," said Tulsa coach John Phillips. "We have a two-year contract with Gonzaga, and we went to their place last year."

Granted, Gonzaga should handle Tulsa with ease, but if something odd were to happen and the Golden Hurricane pull an upset, the Zags' NCAA seeding would take a beating. Gonzaga could easily be a No. 2 or 3 seed even without Bracket Buster.

There is a good game to start the Bracket Buster and a good one to finish it. At 11 a.m., Creighton (18-4) is at Kent State (18-3). Twelve hours later, Hawaii (17-5) is at Southern Illinois (20-2) in a game that starts at 11 p.m. on the SIU campus.

"A lot of people like to be in bed by 11 o'clock, and some of them like to be in bed before then," said SIU coach Matt Painter. "I know the students will be there in full force, but hopefully the fans can make an exception, and everybody can come out, and we can have a hostile crowd like we had last year against Milwaukee.

"We think we've got the best game that day. You have to be selfish and try to get the best game possible to help you get into the Big Dance in case you don't win your conference tournament."

Hawaii (9-3) is in a virtual tie for first in the WAC with Nevada (10-4) and has a half-game lead over Texas-El Paso (9-4). By coincidence, the Rainbows play an important conference game at UTEP next Monday night after their late-night trip to Carbondale, Ill. No big deal, says Hawaii coach Riley Wallace.

"There are no easy ways when you live in Hawaii," Wallace said.

There are some stinkers Saturday, but teams in the Bracket Buster field have nine NCAA Sweet 16 appearances and three Elite Eight appearances in the last five seasons. The 46 teams have a 22-26 record in NCAA first-round games during that span, with 91.6 percent of the wins coming against higher-seeded opponents.

At the other end, there are nine games Saturday featuring teams at or under .500. The idea, clearly, was to include entire conferences in the event a team came from nowhere and had a good season.

That didn't happen for Drake (10-12), which plays at Akron (11-11) Saturday. Even so, Drake coach Tom Davis, who has led Boston College and Iowa to numerous NCAA Tournament wins, likes the Bracket Buster format.

"It's a unique thing, even for those of us struggling to stay above water," Davis said. "The games will certainly help those teams at the top of the conferences, but it will also help those in the middle and on bottom, too."



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