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This is [deleted] terrible- a gut punch to the fanbase, players, coaches. We deserved to be in. BYU, NC State, Tennessee all have less impressive resumes than ours. I imagine this will hurt recruiting. LB just seemed distraught and I really felt for him and especially our seniors.

I will be there on Wed. night, but my god what a disappointment.

its a travesty. Even NC State would have to admit that its crap. I don't understand how a HOF coach gets screwed like this, except that this was all about committee politics and we had no one fighting for us on the committee.

Well, at least it isn't the DP and we do get a #1 seed in the NIT. Sure, its not what one desires but at least the NIT gave us respect.

We just need to win the whole thing and show the NCAA we belong. And our kids get at least one more home game.

File a lawsuit to get the UCONN game delayed to investigate why they were selected over
us Not usually this bratty, but the NCAA deserves it

East Coast Mustang wrote:This is [deleted] terrible- a gut punch to the fanbase, players, coaches. We deserved to be in. BYU, NC State, Tennessee all have less impressive resumes than ours. I imagine this will hurt recruiting. LB just seemed distraught and I really felt for him and especially our seniors.

I will be there on Wed. night, but my god what a disappointment.

I feel awful for all the people I told not to worry. I was speaking completely unbiasedly and I think almost everyone recognized SMU was more deserving than the three you mentioned. Next time I hear the committee say they're taking injuries into account for dropping teams like Kansas, I'm about to fvcking write them a nice long BYU letter. That's bullshyt, 2nd best player gone for the tourney with a torn ACL, more losses in a worse conference, few quality wins, and they WEREN'T even on the BUBBLE. They are a 10 seed. Complete bs. I will say RPI and SOS killed SMU because that is all the committee could've looked at to make those decisions cause there is no way in hell you can convince me that those teams are better than SMU.

I truly feel bad about reassuring people and my brother was even pissed (& he's a Duke fan that I've got watching SMU).

On the flip side, if the team learns anything, it better be that they can't lose to really really bad teams not once, but three times and still expect good things to happen. I'm glad people will be supporting them because I'm sure the team needs it.

OhioBrownFan wrote:On the flip side, if the team learns anything, it better be that they can't lose to really really bad teams not once, but three times and still expect good things to happen. I'm glad people will be supporting them because I'm sure the team needs it.

OBF - love your input. I could care less about this particular tourney (I still think sweet 16 was possible) - I am focused on the next one. If a certain you-know-who signs, all is well. Everything I have heard from other posters is that these sort of things don't matter - and that the decision will be made on other perimeters. I hope that is the case...

PonyTime wrote:

OhioBrownFan wrote:On the flip side, if the team learns anything, it better be that they can't lose to really really bad teams not once, but three times and still expect good things to happen. I'm glad people will be supporting them because I'm sure the team needs it.

OBF - love your input. I could care less about this particular tourney (I still think sweet 16 was possible) - I am focused on the next one. If a certain you-know-who signs, all is well. Everything I have heard from other posters is that these sort of things don't matter - and that the decision will be made on other perimeters. I hope that is the case...

I truly believe they could've got to the Sweet 16 too, we'll never know I guess. I'm just ticked at how the whole thing played out. I knew there was a lot of trouble when they weren't in the first set of teams going to San Antonio. Then looking at some of the teams getting in, you knew others were getting bounced by it. NC State is trash too, ugh. I've never been so disappointed for a team that I'm not a true major fan of, this one feels almost as bad as Ohio State getting beat by Michigan and I'm not kidding. I really feel for every SMU fan. But there's nothing anyone can do about it now, just win, support the team and know the future is bright. The team will gain from additional games and a post-season tourney even if it doesn't do a damn thing for 99% of the country. Every coach would beg to get the extra practices with a young team, especially a team that struggled on the road and against bad teams, so there is a silver lining in it all even though it's a disappointment right now.

ESPN just said that our non conference schedule was ranked 303rd in the country.

SMU 86 wrote:ESPN just said that our non conference schedule was ranked 303rd in the country.

Yeah, it was bad. I didn't even know a lot of the schools existed if that says anything, I'm exaggerating but I thought Ohio State's was bad until I saw some of the games. Hopefully Larry can get some teams willing to play SMU. That's going to be tough because good teams won't want to play teams they can lose to but hopefully really focus on the mid-majors in the RPI 51-100 range. That would be huge. Those wins matter and a loss doesn't kill a team like the RPI 150+ where there is nothing to be gained and everything to lose.

OhioBrownFan wrote:

PonyTime wrote:

OhioBrownFan wrote:On the flip side, if the team learns anything, it better be that they can't lose to really really bad teams not once, but three times and still expect good things to happen. I'm glad people will be supporting them because I'm sure the team needs it.

OBF - love your input. I could care less about this particular tourney (I still think sweet 16 was possible) - I am focused on the next one. If a certain you-know-who signs, all is well. Everything I have heard from other posters is that these sort of things don't matter - and that the decision will be made on other perimeters. I hope that is the case...

I truly believe they could've got to the Sweet 16 too, we'll never know I guess. I'm just ticked at how the whole thing played out. I knew there was a lot of trouble when they weren't in the first set of teams going to San Antonio. Then looking at some of the teams getting in, you knew others were getting bounced by it. NC State is trash too, ugh. I've never been so disappointed for a team that I'm not a true major fan of, this one feels almost as bad as Ohio State getting beat by Michigan and I'm not kidding. I really feel for every SMU fan. But there's nothing anyone can do about it now, just win, support the team and know the future is bright. The team will gain from additional games and a post-season tourney even if it doesn't do a damn thing for 99% of the country. Every coach would beg to get the extra practices with a young team, especially a team that struggled on the road and against bad teams, so there is a silver lining in it all even though it's a disappointment right now.

I certainly see the silver lining. I know that LB is pretty distraught (saw him this morning and he was so upbeat). I know that he will make the most of it. This will all contribute to the overall goal. I am not focused on NCAA tourney, or sweet 16, I am all about final 4 in the next few years. That is the goal - and if this is a step in that direction, than so be it...

SMU 86 wrote:ESPN just said that our non conference schedule was ranked 303rd in the country.

Not sure how playing Virginia, Texas A&M, at Arkansas, at Wyoming is all that bad. And I guess playing Rhode Island twice didn't hurt Umass or those A10 teams, but it hurt us to play them. Our team met the eye test and our schedule met the eye test too, it was not bad enough to deserve getting left out.

Hoop Fan wrote:

SMU 86 wrote:ESPN just said that our non conference schedule was ranked 303rd in the country.

Not sure how playing Virginia, Texas A&M, at Arkansas, at Wyoming is all that bad. And I guess playing Rhode Island twice didn't hurt Umass or those A10 teams, but it hurt us to play them. Our team met the eye test and our schedule met the eye test too, it was not bad enough to deserve getting left out.

It's not the teams you named that hurt. It's all the others that are RPI 150+. I'd venture to guess a lot of them were RPI 250+. Those can't be scheduled in mass like they were again.

Let's not attempt to justify the decision to exclude SMU. There is no justification. None. We just need to take that anger and remember the feeling well. Use it to get to the next level. Start by beating the crap out of the NIT field. I am pis$ed.

ponyboy wrote:Let's not attempt to justify the decision to exclude SMU. There is no justification. None. We just need to take that anger and remember the feeling well. Use it to get to the next level. Start by beating the crap out of the NIT field. I am pis$ed.

agree, the reason we were left out had nothing to do with this stat or that stat, it was that the American had no one on the committee and no one fighting for our teams in the seeding or the bubble. Simple as that.