Mid-Majors: Don't Shut Us Out of 96-Team Field, Too

The heads of the college basketball programs labeled -- often against their will -- as "mid-majors'' are now constantly confronting the possibility raised in early February of the NCAA tournament expanding from its current 65 teams to as high as 96. And those coaches' views about it are split between what they think should happen to them and their brethren, and what will happen.

The two have not always matched up.

That dichotomy played out Saturday at the Patriot Center, George Mason's home arena, where two teams that had earned first-round byes in this week's Colonial Athletic Association tournament met in their regular-season finales. Northeastern, which will be the No. 2 seed, nipped the fourth-seeded Patriots 50-48. Both teams have credentials worth considering for the NCAA tournament, both have blemishes on their records, both know that nothing other than a conference tournament championship guarantees an invitation to the Big Dance, and both know that three other coaches will be suffering through the same angst all weekend in Richmond.

What they don't know is whether any of that would be altered with 65 at-large slots available instead of 34.

"With one of the models, if they expanded all the way to 96, there are going to be more mid-majors involved,'' said Northeastern head coach Bill Coen. "There would almost have to be, based on the records of all the teams involved.''

Like his fellow CAA teams. "Already you look at a team like William & Mary, who beat Wake Forest, beat Maryland, on their court, with their ball and their refs,'' Coen said with a laugh. "And we've been in that position before, where we've played those kind of games. So I know the quality of play in this league, and I know across the country in the Missouri Valley and so on, there are very, very good basketball teams that need an opportunity. And if an expansion gives them that opportunity, then I'm all for it.''

So does counterpart Jim Larranaga (pictured above) of George Mason -- he of the ultimate mid-major Cinderella story, the run to the 2006 Final Four after earning a surprise at-large bid -- who also used that crucial qualifier.

"If we do decide to expand, which I think could be very good,'' he said, "the only thing I would not want to see is teams that have had very mediocre seasons be rewarded, and teams that have played very well in maybe not-so-prestigious conferences be still left out. If we expand, we need to have the idea of expanding to include teams that have had very good seasons, but maybe did not win their own tournaments.''
"The argument is whether they take a BCS middle-of-the-pack team or a second- or third- place team in the Colonial,''
-- Northeastern coach Bill Coen
For example, again, a Northeastern (19-11), a William & Mary (20-9), a Virginia Commonwealth (20-8), an Old Dominion (23-8, including a win at Georgetown), even a George Mason (17-13)? "Yes. I think that's why if they expand, they need to include more teams from mid-major conferences.''

The skepticism among the mid-majors is widespread and unavoidable. All of the aforementioned teams are convinced they are on the bubble without a tournament title. Meanwhile, in the ACC, at least four teams are convinced they are in the field of 65 now, even with similar records -- including Maryland and Wake Forest, who, as Coen pointed out, lost at home to William and Mary.

Virginia Tech lost its third straight game later Saturday to Maryland at home in double-overtime but is tied for fourth in the ACC (with Wake) and has 21 wins. It isn't sure about its NCAA standing, but its coach, Seth Greenberg, is sure that he is "100 percent behind expanding'' the tourney. And, in a weekly teleconference last week, he made it clear that his experience in Larranaga's and Coen's territory -- at Long Beach State and pre-Big East South Florida -- informed his position.

"I've been at every level, too; I've coached in the Big West and Conference USA and, obviously, one year in the Big East and in the ACC,'' Greenberg said. "So I think I have a pretty good perspective on that. I think it will give more teams at all levels an opportunity to have that experience. Will there still be teams that will be on the bubble? Yeah, that 97th team will be on the bubble; that's just the way it is. But I think it will give more people a chance to have that experience.''

The overwhelming majority of coaches who support expansion, regardless of their reason, are using the same talking points, primarily that if 68 of the 120 FBS college football teams can play in bowl games (as was the case last season), only inviting 65 of 347 to the Division I basketball championship is far too few. And the coaches in the major conference are nearly unanimous in supporting expansion, which has led to a public perception that those conferences are behind it, in order to get a bigger piece of a certainly even bigger pie for members having only so-so seasons. Teams from those conferences already have been waved into previous fields with losing conference records, ahead of mid-majors victimized by their one-big league's conference tournaments.

A handful of coaches have gone against the grain. Connecticut's Jim Calhoun voiced his opposition last week, even as his team is planted squarely on the bubble this season. Calhoun, of course, worked his way up to Connecticut by building the Northeastern program in the mid-1980s with the late Reggie Lewis, and he was on the wrong end of the George Mason stampede in 2006.

Joining Calhoun Friday was none other than Kentucky's John Calipari, who also played up his mid-major credentials at Massachusetts and Memphis in denouncing expansion -- pointing a finger at conferences like his own, the Southeastern, in the process (in the same meeting with reporters, he said that he thought the regular season and tournament were only important in terms of positioning for the NCAAs).

"The issue becomes, if you expand, let's just open it up to everybody," Calipari said. "Why are we doing this? 'Well, we need to get 12 out of one league.' Then play better. Finish higher. I just don't agree with it. Where it is right now, it's hard to get in, which makes it neat. It's hard to be seeded right, which makes it great."



Espousing the same theory is the coach of the program that, if not George Mason, is the patron saint of mid-majors, Gonzaga's Mark Few -- who, in appearing earlier in the month on the Dan Patrick national radio show, said that he didn't even like being called "mid-major'' anymore (Our success has transcended [that]'').

"I like the tournament the way it is right now,'' Few said. "I think it's an honor when that name flashes up there on Selection Sunday. It's a sense of accomplishment. Not everybody gets invited. Just think of the teams that aren't gonna make it this year. If you go to 96 you'd totally lose that type of feeling. It'd be so watered down -- I think the regular season wouldn't have much importance."

Gonzaga, of course, is a shoo-in for an at-large berth if it does not win the West Coast Conference tournament; St. Mary's, however, is not, even with 24 wins. There are similar conferences with two or three at-large candidates; those like the Colonial, Missouri Valley, Mountain West and Atlantic-10 with several more; one-bid leagues like the Mid-Eastern and Metro Atlantic -- in which 22-win Morgan State and 23-win Siena, respectively, would surely be left out if they are upset in their tournaments -- and the Ivy League, where with no conference tournament only Cornell is in and Harvard and Princeton are out.

With all of those to account for, the groundswell for an expanded Dance keeps growing -- as long as those kind of programs get their share of the newly-open slots.

"No way is it going to take away from the excitement of the (NCAA) tournament. It will add to it,'' Bradley coach Jim Les said on a conference call for Missouri Valley coaches in early February, according to the The Pantagraph in Bloomington, Ill. "That's why people love that tournament. We have diminishing spots where so-called small guys can have a shot against some of the bigger schools on a neutral court. It needs to happen and it's long overdue.''

Les's argument is backed by Wake Forest's Dino Gaudio, who, like ACC colleague Greenberg has a mid-major background (at Army and Loyola of Maryland): "There's such parity in college basketball now, and there are some more Cinderella teams. They've been there, and nobody knows about them because they haven't had the chance to get into the tournament.''

Northeastern's Coen espoused an alternate expansion option, one not mentioned lately amidst the focus on a 96-team field but popular around every Selection Sunday: adding a handful of play-in games among at-large teams from major and mid-major conferences, with the winners to feed into the 12th or 13th seed. That has been long advanced as a much more fair path than the current play-in between two bottom-ranked conference champs for a 16th seed.

"The argument is whether they take a BCS middle-of-the-pack team or a second- or third- place team in the Colonial,'' said Coen, a longtime assistant at Boston College in both its Big East and ACC days. "A mini-expansion would bring some excitement and serve everybody, because the argument is always with the last four in and last four out.

"It would be another exciting weekend for what's already in my opinion the most exciting sporting event in the country.''

Clearly, though, Coen and others in his mid-major fraternity are on the lookout for being locked out of that event, regardless of if it expands or by how much.