The 7-seeded Texas A&M Aggies (25-9, 15-3 SEC) are set to take on the 10-seed Penn State Nittany Lions on Thursday night, returning to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since the 2018 season, and first appearance under Head coach Buzz Williams in his fourth season with the program.
On the surface, the Aggies more than earned their spot in the Big Dance after winning 19 out of their last 23 games, notching 15 SEC regular season victories, combined with a second consecutive return to the SEC Tournament Title Game last Sunday, falling to Alabama in a lopsided snoozer.
Even after the loss to the Crimson Tide, Texas A&M ranked 19th in the NET, 25th in KenPom, and 17th in the final AP and USA TODAY Coaches polls, but to the Selection Committee, none of that mattered, so a 7-seed is the best they could do because Buzz Williams had the shear audacity to stand up for his team after their tournament snub last season, simply stating coherent facts which were unsurprisingly translated as “whining” from most of the media landscape.
One insider that many of you know all too well, ESPN’s Joe Lunardi revealed in his pre-tournament Bracket “Hits and Misses” article that he predicted, and possibly knew through sources, that Williams’ “public temper tantrum” would result in punishment if the Aggies were to make it to the tournament this season, and surprise surprise, he was correct.
“The committee did 7-seed Texas A&M no favors. The Aggies were clearly a line or two better than that. Then again, we said last year that A&M’s public temper tantrum over its exclusion from the field was a very bad idea. Committee members are human, after all, perhaps with long memories.”
Furthermore, GigEm247 Beat Writer Carter Karels revealed after the Aggies were selected that during a phone interview with Lunardi back in late February, as the analyst again stated,
“Suppose if A&M and North Carolina are the last two teams this year. Well, there might be one, two or three leftover committee members who go, ‘That guy just would not shut up. Did he have to put out a term paper?’
“To me, that is just bad politics. And frankly, I would have scheduled a little better, too, to take that out of the equation.”
Yes, Joe Lunardi may be a proven insider, but there’s zero evidence that he knew exactly how the committee would respond to A&M’s positioning in the bracket this postseason, but it’s very hard to deny any wrongdoing. If the committee has the power to go beyond the metrics and base their selections on personal anguish, expect passionate coaches like Buzz Williams to withhold their opinions on any matter going forward, especially if their team is on the bubble at the end of the season. Oh, and the other three 7-seeded teams’ NET rankings in the Tournament compared to A&M’s? 42, 42, 33. Enjoy the bad math, and BTHO Penn State.
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