There's a Reason It's Called "On the Bubble"

EVERY YEAR there's one team widely perceived as having been royally screwed by the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee, and this year's hard-luck case is Philadelphia's own Drexel Dragons. Bruiser Flint's squad put together a fine season that included very impressive road wins over some strong teams, but in the end, its inability to rise above the rest of its conference was its downfall. Flint thinks he played by the unwritten rules the committee has lain down in recent years for mid-majors that want at-large bids, and I suppose one can make a case for that. But no one ever said the Dragons were a lock -- their inclusion in the tourney was never automatic, and so while failing to hear their name called by Greg Gumbel yesterday is a crushing disappointment, it can't be said to have been completely and utterly unexpected. Another win or two in the Colonial would have pushed Drexel well inside the bubble and saved the gallons of ink being spilled today to spew about the putative injustice of its NIT bid.

Comments

[Jeff Martin]

"saved the gallons of ink being spilled today to spew about the putative injustice of its NIT bid..."

Not to mention the bizzare suggestion by Jim Salisbury to expand the field to 72. I won't call myself an expert on college basketball, but most people can see that the suggestion is plain weird.

[Tom Durso]

Actually, it was Sheridan, not Salisbury. My issue with that is that all you do is push back the cutoff point -- there will still be teams saying they got hosed, they'll just be a little worse than the ones now that are saying it.

[Jeff Martin]

Right, right. My bad on the writer. And yours is precisely the point. You could expand the field to 200 and there'd still be teams thinking they should have made the cut.