Pissed-off Rant Time

Okay, so you're all lucky enough to get the enraged version of Jared P. Stout for this blog post after watching the selection show.

The first thing I have to say is that I hate everyone on ESPN except for Doug Gottlieb. If it were up to them, the six power conferences would get 59 of the 65 bids.

Which brings me to this ... I don't know how anyone can defend putting Arizona in the tournament (which the ESPN people of course did). I don't think I've ever seen a worse decision by the committee than putting Arizona in. Here's a stat for you: Arizona is 2-9 on the road this year. 2-9!!! Even better ... those two wins? Oregon and Oregon State. Two of the three worst teams in the Pac-10! They have ZERO quality wins on the road. And you don't get home games in the NCAA Tourney.

Sidenote: The Wildcats did not beat Gonzaga on the road. The game was in Phoenix, a virtual home game for Arizona.

In addition, the Wildcats lost five of their last six games. The lone victory? A home win against Stanford ... the other team in the bottom three in the Pac-10.

Saint Mary's, a team that missed the tournament, played eight games in a row away from home earlier this season and won seven of those. Do you think you think a major conference team would ever play eight straight games away from home? (Thank you, Gottlieb for bringing that up.) Saint Mary's went 7-3 on the road for the season, and if you add neutral-court games, they are 13-5.

Saint Mary's was beating Gonzaga ON THE ROAD until their star player, Patty Mills, went down with an injury in the second half. Then the Gaels went on a little slide. I thought the committee was supposed to take these things in consideration. I guess that's only for teams in some conferences.

And then there's Creighton, a team that won 11 of 12 games to finish off the season. They also absolutely bitch-slapped Dayton, a tournament team, earlier in the year by 28 points. I think the Blue Jays are another team that could've been in over Arizona. Actually, there are about 9,000 teams that should've been in rather than Arizona.

Basically, the committee sent a horrible message that if you're a power-conference team, you don't need to schedule road games, and you don't need to win them either. All you need to do is go .500 in your conference and have a big name like Arizona.

OK, so that's my rant. The committee did an alright job except for that Arizona abomination, which was awful enough to screw up everything they did right.

To end things on a happy note ... man, I am ready for some madness!