As they languish in the NCAA tournament bubble, mid-major teams are often penalized by metrics for something beyond their control: who they play, and more accurately, who they don’t play.
That’s the case for Miami (Ohio), which entered Sunday with a 31-1 record but was one of the final four teams with zero games against Final Four opponents on its regular-season schedule. Miami then defeated SMU of the ACC in the First Four to advance to the full NCAA Tournament.
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Mid-major High Point pulled off the first major upset of the NCAA tournament with an 83-82 victory over fifth-seeded Wisconsin on Thursday.
High Point Coach: ‘We’ve played someone now’
High Point doesn’t have to worry about the bubble thanks to a win in the automatic bid to the Big South tournament.
But head coach Flynn Kleiman was ready to take the torch from the mid-major team and criticize the senior major league team as soon as the buzzer sounded on High Point’s victory.
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When asked how he felt about winning the first NCAA tournament win in program history, he immediately responded to TBS:
“It’s obvious to me that the high majors need to play the mid-majors during the season,” Kleiman said. “They said we’re not playing against anybody. We’re already playing against somebody now.”
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When asked again about the win, Kleiman once again blamed the senior teams for not scheduling games against the mid-level teams.
“It feels unreal. Because I know how good our team is,” he continued. “But no one’s going to play us. Just like they’re not going to play Miami (Ohio). But they have to play us in this game.”
Why is this important?
Like Miami, High Point has not faced a strong opponent in the regular season. There’s little financial or basketball incentive for power programs to schedule games against mid-majors, so they often don’t.
It’s not for lack of trying. Miami associate head coach Jonathan Holmes previously told Jeff Eisenberg of Yahoo Sports that the plan was “rejected by about 75 to 90 teams” trying to get it on the schedule.
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That puts mid-major teams at a disadvantage in terms of high-level metrics that determine NCAA seeding and which bubble teams make it and which don’t. If a team doesn’t win any of its four games, it becomes difficult to advance in the NET rankings referenced by the selection committee.
If your team doesn’t have any games against Quad 1 opponents, then obviously, it doesn’t have any Quad 1 wins.
“We can’t get the game”
Kleiman elaborated on the conundrum in his postgame press conference, noting that High Point and Miami are now 2-0 against their NCAA Tournament Final Four opponents.
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“High Point and Miami (Ohio) are 2-0 in the quarterfinals,” he said. “We can’t get a game, they can’t get a game. Akron can’t get a game. UNCW can’t get a game. Belmont can’t get a game. We’ve won 22 of the last 23 games and the metric didn’t move up one spot. Not one.”
“We’ve won 25 games by double digits. That team (Wisconsin) is a good team and beat five top-10 teams. If we can have games like that at a neutral site and some home games, I think we’ll know who the really best team is.”
Flynn Kleiman doesn’t mince words when criticizing power conference teams’ schedules. (C. Morgan Engel/NCAA Photo via Getty Images)
(C. Morgan Engel, Getty Images)
While Klayman’s point is salient, the solution isn’t simple. For power conference teams, scheduling games against mid-major leagues does not bring unexpected financial benefits. It doesn’t have any advantages in basketball, either.
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A win against a mid-major team will do little to boost a power conference team’s NCAA tournament resume, while a loss would be a major blow. For a high-level team, this is almost purely a negative performance.
One potential solution could be a regular-season tournament or showcase game that would include a game between the senior majors and mid-majors on a neutral court. But so far, this is not the norm. Mid-major teams are left to navigate the NCAA tournament bubble with little opportunity to improve their resumes.
